Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under Article 18 of
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against
Women

Combined third and fourth periodic reports of States
parties*†

* For the combined initial and second period reports submitted by the
Government of Guatemala, see CEDAW/C/GUA/1-2 and CEDAW/C/GUA/1-2/Amend.1,
which
were considered by the Committee at its thirteenth session.

† The annexes submitted with the present report are on file with the
Secretariat, where they may be consulted.

Guatemala

Combined third and fourth periodic reports of Guatemala on the
implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of
Discrimination against Women

Introduction

The national and international campaign to ensure the genuine recognition of
women’s human rights is a very exciting task on
which the Government of
Guatemala has been working with the active involvement of the various Guatemalan
women’s organizations,
which, through a series of joint actions, are
building on and making tangible the progress achieved by women in securing the
promotion,
defence and protection of their rights.

Throughout Guatemala’s history, women have been actively involved in
the country’s socio-economic development, despite
the entrenched
patriarchal attitudes that persist in countries like Guatemala.

This report, which covers the period from 1992 to 1998, highlights the
principal actions taken to fulfil the commitments made in
the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The report explains at length the legislative and administrative measures
taken to ensure gender equality in both public and private
life, namely, in the
labour, economic, social and cultural areas of women’s lives as active
participants in Guatemala’s
development.

It is important to mention that, although human rights activists working in
both governmental and non-governmental organizations
have been making concerted
efforts to uphold women’s human rights, there are constraints that prevent
the implementation of
practical measures to ensure women’s comprehensive,
full development. Guatemalan women’s organizations have presented
legislative proposals to members of the Congress of the Republic with a view to
the adoption of legislative amendments that incorporate
concepts and mechanisms
sensitive to women’s interests, so that norms deriving from the various
international instruments can
be harmoniously incorporated into
Guatemala’s domestic law and administrative practice.

This report was prepared essentially on the basis of an analysis of studies
and research carried out by governmental institutions
and non-governmental
organizations working on women’s issues. We wish to acknowledge here their
efforts, their contribution,
their teamwork and the support that they have given
to the Presidential Commission for Coordinating Executive Policy in the Field
of
Human Rights (COPREDEH), thereby enabling it to produce this report.

General overview

Population

Guatemala occupies an area of 108,889 square kilometres divided into 22
departments and 330 municipalities. It has an estimated population
growth rate
of 2.9 per cent, with significant variations among departments, the highest rate
being observed in areas inhabited by
the indigenous population.

In the latest population census conducted by the National Statistical
Institute (INE), Guatemala had a population of 8,331,874 inhabitants,
of whom
4,103,569, or 49.3 per cent, were men and 4,228,305, or 50.7 per cent, were
women.

According to the census, the rural population numbered 5,417,187
inhabitants, or 65 per cent of the total, while the urban population
numbered
2,914,687, or 35 per cent. Women accounted for 50 per cent (2,706,283) of
the rural population and 52 per cent (1,522,022)
of the urban population.

Guatemalan society is multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual. It is
made up of Maya, ladinos, Garifuna and Xinca. INE classifies 42.8 per
cent (3,476,684) of the population as indigenous and 57.2 per cent (4,637,380)
as non-indigenous.

Children under the age of 14 years accounted for 44 per cent of the
population, and 65 per cent of the population were aged under
24 years. Life
expectancy was 60 years.

With regard to marital status, 1,869,801 Guatemalans, or 35 per cent, were
married; 1,095,331, or 20.5 per cent, were in de facto
unions; 1.6 per cent were
divorced; 4.4 per cent were widowed; and 38.5 per cent were single.

Currently, Guatemala has a population of roughly 10,029,714 and a population
density of 92 inhabitants per square kilometre. Sixty
per cent of the population
live in rural areas, in 20,017 localities of which 87 per cent have under 1,000
inhabitants. Children
under the age of 15 make up 45 per cent of the population
and only 3.3 per cent of the population are aged over 65. Women account
for 49.4
per cent of the total population and a little under half of them are of
child-bearing age. The indigenous population accounts
for 41.9 per cent of the
total population and is made up of over 21 linguistic groups, the main ones
being K’iché, Kaqchikel,
Q’eqchi and Mam.

Socio-economic situation

According to INE, in 1995 2.2 per cent of landowners owned 66 per cent of
cultivable land. In 1996, the official currency, the quetzal,
was valued at 6.09
quetzales to 1 US dollar.

In 1966, the gross domestic product (GDP) was US$ 15,630.1 million and the
external debt was US$ 1,525.9 million; the annual rate
of inflation was 10.9 per
cent. That same year, the economically active population totalled 3.2 million
persons, of whom 158,200,
or 4.9 per cent, were unemployed.

The number of children between the ages of 10 and 17 who were economically
active was 447,886, of whom 44 per cent were aged 10 to
14 and 66 per cent were
aged 15 to 17. According to INE, in 1995, per capita income was 906.43 quetzales
per month and the cost of
the basic basket for a family of five was 2,500
quetzales per month; the trade balance was US$ 933 million in 1996.

Political situation

During the period from 1991 to 1997, there were important developments in
Guatemala in which women played an active role in many
areas of social and
political life. In 1991, women were already occupying political decision-making
posts and a democratically elected
President took office at the head of the
country’s second civilian Government after 16 military Governments. During
his tenure,
policies were adopted for the integration of women in society as
subjects of law. The Congress of the Republic, through Decree No.
64-92, drafted
amendments to the Labour Code that confirmed the equality of men and women
embodied in the Constitution by giving women a number of rights that included
equal access to work.

This process was interrupted on 25 May 1993, when President Jorge Serrano
Elías issued Presidential Decree No. 1-93 suspending
more than 40
articles of the Constitution, dissolved the Congress of the Republic and
stripped the judges of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court of their
office,
in a coup d’état that concluded with the breakdown of the
democratically established legal and political system. The
constitutional and
political crisis triggered by Presidential Decree No. 1-93, entitled
“Temporary governmental legislation”
tested the strength of the
dissolved institutions, and the mechanisms put in place for resolving the issue
of presidential succession
proved their worth.

The Constitutional Court issued a ruling declaring Decree No. 1-93
unconstitutional and unlawful, since it violated the Constitution, and ruled it
to be absolutely null and void. When the President of the Republic refused to
accept the ruling, the Constitutional
Court issued an executive decision
ordering the armed forces to enforce it. The armed forces obeyed and the
President of the Republic
was forced to resign. By virtue of article 186 of the
Constitution, the Vice-President was barred from succeeding him.

According to article 189 of the Constitution, in the event of permanent
absence of the President and Vice-President of the Republic, the remainder of
their term shall be served
by persons appointed by majority vote of two thirds
of the total membership of the Congress of the Republic. The Congress chose
Ramiro
de León Carpio, who had until then been serving as Human Rights
Procurator, to serve as President and Arturo Herbruger Asturias
to serve as
Vice-President.

The Guatemalan people displayed a considerable degree of civic
responsibility in ensuring the peaceful restoration of constitutional
government, reflected in unity among the national press, the country’s
universities, the Catholic Church, business, popular
and trade union
organizations, schoolteachers, students and professionals and the successful
functioning of the institutions responsible
for protecting the constitutional
system.

The negotiating process between the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
Guatemalteca (URNG) and the Government of Guatemala began with
the Esquipulas
Declaration of 25 May 1986, adopted during the democratic Government of Vinicio
Cerezo. As part of the search for
regional peace and development pursuant to the
7 August 1987 Procedure for the establishment of a firm and lasting peace
in Central
America, the Guatemalan peace process was launched through the
signing of the Basic Agreement on the Search for Peace by Political
Means.

In 1993, a Permanent Forum for Peace was created to discuss the substantive
agenda for the peace negotiations and in May 1994 an
Assembly of Civil Society
grouped by social sector was set up for the resumption of the negotiating
process. Women began to get involved,
particularly in the trade union and
popular sectors, but it was difficult to make the other sectors of society
recognize the existence
of women’s organizations. As the negotiating
process advanced, however, this obstacle was overcome and women succeeded in
having
their needs taken into account in the Peace Agreements. This was a
milestone for women’s involvement in solving the nation’s
problems,
based on their own particular perspective and on recognition of their right to
participate in the development of Guatemalan
society.

On 26 December 1996, under the Government of President Alvaro Arzú,
the armed conflict which had been devastating Guatemalan
society for over 35
years finally came to an end with the signing of the Agreement on a Firm and
Lasting Peace, paving the way for
fulfilment of the commitments contained in the
Peace Agreements.

The Peace Agreements contain commitments made by the Government with regard
to the comprehensive development of Guatemalan women.
This requires the planning
and execution of public policies with a gender perspective.

Applicability of the definition of discrimination contained in the
Convention

According to the members of the National Constituent Assembly who drafted
Guatemala’s Constitution in 1985, the Constitution is humanist in intent,
since its principal concern is the protection of the human person. This concern
is evident from the outset,
for the preamble affirms the pre-eminence of the
human person as the subject and purpose of the social order and recognizes the
family
as the source of society’s spiritual and moral values and the State
as the entity responsible for promoting the common good.
Article 4 recognizes
the right of human beings to freedom and equality.

Guatemalan historians acknowledge the incorporation of human rights into our
legal system during the various stages of Guatemala’s
social and political
development, but enforcing women’s right to equality with men has proved
an uphill task because of the
sexist stereotypes that exist in our society.

Article 2

Administrative and legislative measures to protect women against
discrimination

The Guatemalan State has been taking action to eradicate discrimination
against women within society. As soon as it was ratified,
the Convention became
part of Guatemala’s domestic law. Article 46 of the Constitution
stipulates that, in human rights matters, treaties and conventions take
precedence over the Constitution, with the result that the definition of
discrimination contained in the Convention can be invoked before the
corresponding judicial
organs. Also, article 4 of the Constitution recognizes
equality among human beings. Thus, Guatemala is thus committed both nationally
and internationally to enforcing the articles
of the Convention.

Articles 273 to 275 of the Constitution establish that the public entity
responsible for upholding the constitutional order is the Congressional Human
Rights Committee and
that the Human Rights Procurator is responsible for the
promotion, verification and protection of universal human rights.

Congressional Decree No. 54-86, as amended by Congressional Decree
No. 32-87, stipulates the functions of the Congressional Human
Rights
Committee and the Human Rights Procurator with a view to the proper application
and monitoring of the human rights guaranteed
by the Constitution. The functions
and powers of the Human Rights Procurator include the following:

(f) To promote judicial or administrative proceedings or remedies in cases
where this is appropriate;

(g) To carry out such other functions and powers as are assigned to him
under this Decree”.

The Human Rights Procurator is legally mandated to deal with cases of
alleged human rights violations throughout the national territory.
The rights
protected are the individual, social, civic and political rights included in
title II of the Constitution and those contained in international treaties or
conventions accepted and ratified by Guatemala.

The organizational structure of the Office of the Human Rights Procurator
includes an Office for the Defence of Women’s Human
Rights, which was set
up by the Procurator to protect, defend and promote the human rights of
Guatemalan women.

The Office for the Defence of Women’s Human Rights works in five
areas:

1. Education and training;

2. Assistance to women victims of violence and aggression;

3. Economic and social rights;

4. Strengthening of suboffices in the country’s various
departments;

5. Legal and social issues.

Guatemala’s domestic legislation also regulates the means of enforcing
the rights embodied in the Constitution, by giving judicial organs jurisdiction
through the remedies of amparo and habeas corpus and by providing for
actions against unconstitutionality.

By Governmental Agreement No. 356-96 of 6 September 1996, the First
Lady’s Social Work Secretariat (SOSEP) set up the Programme
for the
Advancement of Rural Women, which is receiving support from the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), governmental
institutions and non-governmental
organizations for activities in the areas of health, education, basic services
and income generation,
as well as technical and financial support for improving
the socio-economic situation of rural women and their families living in
poverty
and extreme poverty.

In 1991, the National Office for Women’s Affairs (ONAM) drafted the
first proposals for amending the Civil Code, the Penal
Code and the Labour Code.
These amendments were submitted to the Congressional Committee on Women. In
September 1992, the Labour
Code was amended by Congressional Decree
No. 6492. The amendments included increasing the period of postpartum
maternity leave from
45 to 54 days; entitling women who adopt a child to take
postpartum maternity leave in order to develop a bond with the child; and
computing the period of entitlement to breastfeeding breaks from the date of the
mother’s return to work rather than the date
of childbirth.

In 1994, in accordance with Decree No. 69-94, the Guatemalan State ratified
the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment
and Eradication of
Domestic Violence, or Convention of Belem do Pará. Violence was
recognized to be a social problem caused
by the unequal relations that exist
between men and women in the social, economic, legal, political and cultural
spheres. Pursuant
to the Convention, Guatemala adopted legislation designed to
reduce and eradicate domestic violence, namely, Congressional Decree
No. 97-96
containing the Act on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Domestic
Violence. The Act establishes mechanisms making
the protection of victims of
domestic violence operational, thereby eliminating discrimination against women
in law courts and administrative
organs.

On 10 December 1995, a group of Guatemalan women, advised by the Human
Rights Legal Action Centre (CALDH) and guided and assisted
by legal
professionals, invoked article 46 of the Constitution and the international
conventions ratified by Guatemala to file an action of unconstitutionality with
the Constitutional Court against
articles 232 to 235 of the Penal Code. Those
articles typified the crime of adultery as an offence only when it was committed
by
women, thereby violating the principles of equality embodied in the
Constitution.

The ruling handed down by the Constitutional Court on 7 March 1996
considered the primacy of the Constitution to be the cornerstone of the
country’s legal and political system. Contrasting article 232 of the Penal
Code with the Constitution, in which the right to equality is fully recognized,
the Court ruled that article 232 discriminated against married women on grounds
of their sex, since the same acts committed in the same circumstances by a man
did not constitute the offence of adultery, meaning
that gender had a direct,
unequivocal bearing on whether or not the acts in question were considered to
constitute such an offence.
By making conjugal infidelity an offence only when
it was committed by the wife, the Penal Code was treating identical acts
differently.
The difference established by lawmakers in dealing with the same
factual situation was unreasonable and there was no justification
for including
such acts among offences against the institutions of the family and marriage. If
the purpose was to protect those institutions,
the Penal Code would have
punished equally infidelity committed by either spouse. The discriminatory
articles of the Penal Code conflicted
with article 4 of the Constitution and so
the Court felt that they had no place in Guatemala’s legislation. It
therefore ruled that articles 232, 233, 234 and
235 of the Penal Code
promulgated by Congressional Decree No. 17-73 were unconstitutional.

To comply with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women as regards ensuring women’s equal
rights with
men in the area of education, Governmental Agreement No. 711-93 of 3 December
1993 set up an inter-agency commission
consisting of representatives of the
National Office for Women’s Affairs, the National Council on Education,
the Human Resources
Development and Curriculum Reform Scheme, the National
Textbook and Teaching Materials Centre, the Office of Rural Socio-Educational
Development and non-governmental organizations to take the necessary action to
eliminate from textbooks stereotypes of men’s
and women’s roles in
society.

On 18 November 1996, with the sponsorship of the Netherlands cooperation
agency, the Swedish cooperation agency, the United Nations
Development Fund for
Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the National
Office for Women’s Affairs
launched a project to provide technical and
political support to the lobby on legal reforms relating to women, known as the
“Women
and Legal Reforms” lobby, which had been set up in response
to the need to support the Office’s own efforts to propose
legislation
that would reduce the inequalities in Guatemala’s laws that discriminate
against women. The main proposals currently
under discussion in the
corresponding legislative committees concern, inter alia:

Non-governmental organizations have drafted and submitted to the legislative
branch legislative proposals such as the following:

(a) Act Enhancing and Advancing the Status of Women and the Family;

(b) Amendments to the Elections and Political Parties Act.

With regard to the commitments made in the Peace Agreements, particularly
the Agreement on the Strengthening of Civilian Power and
on the Role of the
Armed Forces in a Democratic Society, the Commission on the Strengthening of the
Justice System was established
by Governmental Agreement No. 221-97 of 19 March
1997. Its mandate was to produce, by means of a broad debate on the system of
justice,
a report and a set of recommendations. The Commission had 12 members,
who acted in their individual capacity as citizens rather than
as
representatives of a particular sector or institution, and it was not paid for
its work. The thematic areas on which it focused
its analysis and
recommendations were:

– Modernization;

– Access to justice;

– Streamlining of judicial proceedings;

– Professional excellence.

On 26 May 1998, the Commission presented its report and its recommendations
for constitutional amendments relating to the administration
of justice. Its
recommendations included the following:

– Alternative dispute settlement mechanisms must not, by virtue of the
terms on which they are offered to the public, amount
to a privatized system of
justice that is available only to those who can pay for it. Rather, access to
such mechanisms must be truly
universal;

– The judiciary must promote compliance with the legal provisions
giving judges responsibility for promoting conciliation between
the parties
according to specific procedures. The judiciary’s action must be supported
by activities to train judges in conciliation
techniques;

– The Commission reiterated the principle that the Constitution must
recognize the existence of customary partners. Such recognition affords an
opportunity for the administration of justice to
acknowledge the country’s
multicultural, multi-ethnic nature and thereby acquire a social legitimacy that
it unfortunately
lacks at present.

Streamlining of judicial proceedings:

– In non-criminal matters, the law should limit procedural
documentation to the initial stage of the proceedings, the sole
object being to
have the parties identify the facts in dispute, clarify the issues that will
constitute the procedural record and
establish their claims for the hearing;

– The hearing should be the key, final stage of the proceedings. In
this mandatory phase, the judge must first try to reconcile
the parties. If that
fails, a second phase would follow in which evidence would be produced,
allegations would be made and, lastly,
the judge would pass sentence;

– The judge’s presence at the proceedings should be
mandatory;

– A single proceeding should be instituted for the settlement of
disputes that are similar in nature;

– Efforts should be made to limit the abuse of legal challenges;

– In criminal matters, judges should be held responsible for
discharging their unavoidable mandate to receive the accused’s
statement
by issuing a warrant as required by law;

– Judges and magistrates should be punished if, without justification,
they transfer decisions that should be issued at the
hearing and instead issue
them in writing, invoking the Act governing the judiciary.

Professional excellence:

– The Career Judicial Service Act must provide proper guarantees to
ensure that members of the judiciary meet standards of
professional excellence
and independence in the performance of their functions;

– One basic objective of the career judicial service is to ensure that
members of the judiciary are of the highest possible
professional calibre.
Accordingly, the selection process for all levels of judge and magistrate must
be based on the objectively
and transparently determined merits of the
candidate. The act of appointing a judge or magistrate must be the culmination
of this
open, public selection process. In the case of Supreme Court judges, the
appointment must be made by the Congress of the Republic;

– The career judicial service must incorporate systems for the
in-service training and ongoing evaluation of judges and magistrates
to ensure
that quality in the performance of their functions is maintained.

On 12 November 1997, the National Women’s Forum was established, with
the participation of all the most representative governmental
and
non-governmental women’s organizations in the country, to promote and
propose actions to comply with the commitments relating
to women contained in
the Peace Agreements, as well as with the international treaties and conventions
on this subject to which Guatemala
is a party. The Forum’s work is focused
on four thematic areas:

(a) Development of production projects;

(b) Social development;

(c) Civic and political participation;

(d) Legislative reforms.

On 12 and 13 November 1998, the Women’s Forum analysed the proposals
put forward by women for promoting the economic and social
development of
Guatemalan women. Delegates from the country’s various linguistic regions
took part in this process.

In August 1996, the Coordinating Office of Organizations of the Maya People
of Guatemala (Saqb’ichi COPMAGUA), pursuant to
the Agreement on Identity
and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, set up the Standing Commission on Indigenous
Women’s Rights. On
12 December 1997, the Commission submitted to the Peace
Secretariat a bill setting up an Office for the Defence of Indigenous
Women’s
Rights.

Also among the legislative measures taken to eradicate discrimination
against women, on 13 October 1998 the bill setting up the National
Institute for
Women was submitted for second reading with a view to its adoption by the
Congress of the Republic.

On 19 December 1998, through Decree No. 80-98, the Congress of the Republic
adopted amendments to articles 109, 110, 115, 131, 132,
133, 255 and 114 of the
Civil Code. At the time of drafting this report, the amendments were pending
approval by the executive branch.

Article 3

Programmes and measures for the development and advancement of women on a
basis of equal opportunity

In this area, the Government of Guatemala, through the First Lady’s
Social Work Secretariat (SOSEM) and the National Office
for Women’s
Affairs (ONAM), with support from UNICEF, drafted the bill entitled
“National Policy for the Advancement
and Development of Guatemalan Women:
Equal Opportunity Plan 1997-2001”. The aim was to bring about qualitative
changes in the
current situation and status of Guatemalan women through the
adoption by governmental institutions of measures, programmes and projects
designed to promote women’s all-round development, empowering them to
participate fully at all levels of the country’s
social, economic,
political and cultural structures. The bill is being analysed by the
Government’s Social Cabinet, after which
it will be submitted to the
Congress of the Republic for study and discussion.

The Peace Agreements resulting from the negotiations between URNG and the
Government on the achievement of a firm and lasting peace
in Guatemala include
the following commitments relating to the advancement of women:

Agreement on Resettlement of the Population Groups Uprooted by the Armed
Conflict

Guarantees for the resettlement of the uprooted population groups (part II,
paragraph 2):

“Special emphasis should be placed on protecting female-headed
families and widows and orphans, who have been the most seriously
affected”.

Productive integration of uprooted population groups and development of
resettlement areas (part III, paragraph 8):

“The Government undertakes to eliminate any form of de facto or de
jure discrimination against women with regard to access
to land, housing,
credits and participation in development projects. The gender-based approach
shall be incorporated into the policies,
programmes and activities of the
comprehensive development strategy”.

“It is recognized that indigenous women are particularly vulnerable
and helpless, being confronted with twofold discrimination
both as women and as
indigenous people and also having to deal with a social situation characterized
by intense poverty and exploitation.
The Government undertakes to take the
following measures:

– Promote legislation to classify sexual harassment as a criminal
offence, considering as an aggravating factor in determining
the penalty for
sexual offences the fact that the offence was committed against an indigenous
woman;

– Establish an Office for the Defence of Indigenous Women’s
Rights, with the participation of such women, including legal
advice services
and social services; and

– Promote the dissemination and faithful implementation of the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against
Women”.

(Paragraph 2):

“The communications media and organizations concerned with the
promotion of human rights are urged to cooperate in the attainment
of the
objectives listed in this section”.

Cultural rights (part III, section G, Education reform, paragraph 4):

“In order to facilitate access by indigenous people to formal and
non-formal education, the system of scholarships and student
grants shall be
strengthened. Teaching materials containing cultural and gender stereotypes
shall also be revised”.

“Eliminate any form of de facto or de jure discrimination against
women with regard to facilitating access to land, housing,
credits and
participation in development projects”.

Agreement on Social and Economic Aspects and the Agrarian
Situation

Democratization and participatory development (part I, section B,
Participation of women in economic and social development, paragraph
11):

“The active participation of women is essential for Guatemala’s
economic and social development, and the State has a
duty to promote the
elimination of all forms of discrimination against women”.

(Paragraph 12):

“Recognizing women’s undervalued contributions in all spheres of
economic and social activity, and particularly their
efforts towards community
improvement, the Parties agree that there is a need to strengthen women’s
participation in economic
and social development on equal terms”.

(Paragraph 13):

“To this end, the Government undertakes to take the specific economic
and social situation of women into account in its development
strategies, plans
and programmes and to train civil servants in analysis and planning based on
this approach. This undertaking includes
the following:

– Recognizing the equal rights of women and men in the home, in the
workplace, in the production sector and in social and political
life and
ensuring that women have the same opportunities as men, particularly with regard
to access to credit, land ownership and
other productive and technological
resources;

– Education and training: Ensuring that women have equal opportunities
for education and training on the same conditions as
men and that any form of
discrimination against women that may be found in school curricula is
eliminated;

– Housing: Ensuring that women have equal access to housing of their
own by eliminating the obstacles and impediments that
affect women in relation
to rental property, credit and construction;

– Work: Guaranteeing women’s right to work, which requires:
using various means to encourage vocational training for
women; revising labour
legislation to guarantee equality of rights and opportunities for men and women;
in rural areas, recognizing
women as agricultural workers to ensure that their
work is valued and remunerated; enacting laws to protect the rights of women who
work as household employees, especially in relation to fair wages, working
hours, social security and respect for their dignity;

– Organization and participation: Guaranteeing women’s right to
organize and their participation, on the same terms as
men, at the senior
decision-making levels of local, regional and national institutions;

– Legislation: Revising national legislation and regulations to
eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in terms
of economic,
social, cultural and political participation and to give effect to the
governmental commitments deriving from the ratification
of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”.

“To avoid the perpetuation of poverty and of social, ethnic, sexual
and geographical forms of discrimination, particularly
those which arise from
the divide between urban and rural society”.

Social participation (section B, Health, paragraph 23 (g)):

“The system would encourage the active participation of
municipalities, communities and social organizations (including women’s
groups, indigenous people’s groups, trade unions and civic and
humanitarian associations) in the planning, execution and monitoring
of the
administration of health services and programmes, through local health systems
and urban and rural development councils”.

Protective labour legislation (section E, Work, paragraph 26 (d)):

“Decentralize and expand labour inspection services, strengthening the
capacity to monitor compliance with the labour norms
of domestic law and those
derived from the international labour conventions ratified by Guatemala, paying
particular attention to
monitoring compliance with the labour rights of women,
migrant and seasonal agricultural workers ... and other workers who are in
a
more vulnerable and unprotected situation”.

Agrarian situation and rural development (part III)

Participation (section A, paragraph 33):

“Mobilize the capacity to make proposals and take action of all actors
involved in the agricultural sector, including indigenous
peoples’
organizations, producers’ associations, business associations, rural
workers’ trade unions, peasant and
women’s organizations and the
country’s universities and research centres. To that end, in addition to
the provisions
of other chapters of this Agreement, the Government undertakes
to:

(a) Strengthen the capacity of rural organizations such as associative
peasant enterprises, cooperatives, peasant associations, joint
ventures and
self-managed and family businesses to participate fully in decision-making on
all matters concerning them, and establish
or strengthen State institutions,
especially those of the State agricultural sector, involved in rural development
so that they can
promote such participation, particularly the full access of
women to decision-making. That will increase the effectiveness of State
action
and ensure that it responds to the needs of rural areas. In particular,
participation in development councils will be promoted
as a framework for the
joint formulation of development and land-use plans;

(b) Strengthen and expand the participation of peasant organizations, rural
women, indigenous organizations, cooperatives, producers’
associations and
non-governmental organizations in the National Agricultural Development Council
(CONADEA) as the main mechanism
for consultation, coordination and social
participation in the decision-making process for rural development and, in
particular,
for the implementation of this chapter”.

“In order to increase opportunities for women to participate in the
exercise of civilian power, the Government undertakes to:

– Set up nationwide publicity campaigns and educational programmes
designed to raise public awareness of women’s right
to participate
actively and decisively in the process of strengthening civilian power, without
discrimination and with full equality
for both rural and urban women;

– Take appropriate measures to ensure that social and political
organizations adopt specific policies to encourage and promote
women’s
participation as part of the process of strengthening civilian power;

– Respect, promote, support and institutionalize women’s
organizations in rural and urban areas;

– Ensure that at all times in the exercise of power, women, whether
organized or not, are provided with and guaranteed opportunities
to
participate”.

Agreement on the Implementation, Compliance and Verification Timetable
for the Peace Agreements

– Commitment 29: Women’s Forum

“Promote the convening of a women’s forum on the commitments
concerning women’s rights and participation set out
in the Peace
Agreements”.

On 12 November 1997, the Forum was established, with the participation of
the most representative governmental and non-governmental
women’s
organizations in the country, to promote and propose actions to comply with the
commitments relating to women contained
in the Peace Agreements, as well as with
the international instruments on this subject which Guatemala has ratified.

The Forum’s work is focused on four thematic areas:

(a) Development of production projects;

(b) Social development, including education and comprehensive health
care;

(c) Civic and political participation;

(d) Legislative reforms.

Article 4

Temporary special measures aimed at achieving equality between men and
women

In the 1985 Constitution, the State of Guatemala set forth the individual
and collective principles and human rights applicable to the Guatemalan people.
Article 4 establishes that “In Guatemala, all human beings are equal in
dignity and rights. Men and women, regardless of their
marital status, have
equal opportunities and responsibilities. No person may be subjected to
servitude or any other status which
impairs his or her dignity. Human beings
must be supportive of one another”.

It can be deduced from the above provision that legal protection for the
adoption of measures in favour of the female population
is mandatory and that
effective protection of women’s right to appeal to the justice system to
make such equality real and
effective is guaranteed through the national
courts.

However, because of the patriarchal culture that still predominates in
Guatemalan society, the provision has yet to be properly applied
in relation to
women’s rights. Faced with this disparity between the de jure and de facto
situations, governmental institutions
and non-governmental organizations have
submitted legislative proposals to the legislative branch which would permit
women’s
social, political, cultural and economic development.

The measures taken by the State of Guatemala to overcome de facto inequality
between men and women are permanent and include actions
in the area of education
and maternity protection, which are described in the corresponding sections of
this report.

Article 5

Elimination of sexist stereotypes

Elimination of stereotypes from school textbooks and from educational
materials in general

In 1989, the National Office for Women’s Affairs (ONAM) in the
Ministry of Labour and Social Security made a detailed analysis
of school
textbooks and, with support from UNICEF and UNIFEM, designed a methodology for
eliminating sexist roles and stereotypes
from textbooks and educational
materials. Instruction in that methodology was provided at various training
workshops for textbook
designers and publishers, technical personnel and primary
school teachers. A special commission was set up by Governmental Agreement
No.
711-93 to ensure that the methodology was applied.

Among its achievements in this area, ONAM signed a letter of understanding
with the University of San Carlos on mainstreaming a gender
perspective in
academic units and for students entering the professions. Gender has also been
incorporated in the conferring of professional
qualifications.

Elimination of stereotypes in job offers and commercial
advertising

Congressional Decree No. 1441 containing the Guatemalan Labour Code
prohibits the media from advertising job offers that specify
eligibility
criteria such as sex, race, ethnicity or marital status, except in special cases
where the nature of the job so requires,
in which case authorization must be
sought from the Labour Inspectorate, the entity that oversees employer-employee
relations.

The Labour Code also establishes that breaches of this prohibition shall be
subject to a fine of 1,500 to 5,000 quetzales. To date,
this is the only legal
provision on the elimination of sexist stereotypes in the mass media.

Family education

The non-governmental Association for Family Welfare (APROFAM) conducts
training workshops and seminars for women and men at which
it provides sex
education and information on family planning and the prevention of sexually
transmitted diseases and helps raise
public awareness of the importance of
sharing responsibilities in the home.

The primary aim of the First Lady’s Social Work Secretariat (SOSEP) is
to promote a movement within the country for the renewal
and development of
family values. To that end, it set up a National Commission for the Family by
means of Governmental Agreement
No. 298-96 of 24 July 1996. The Commission has a
departmental commission in each of the country’s 22 departments, involving
local public officials and community leaders. Its aims include:

1. Advocating legislation that will foster the all-round development of the
family;

2. Conducting an ongoing family values campaign;

3. Strengthening the departmental commissions in this regard.

The Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, as the lead agency for
health policy, has set up a “Women, Health and Development”
programme to promote women’s health services. The programme, which is
being carried out in the departments of Chimaltenango,
Totonicapán,
Sacatepéquez, Baja Verapaz and Alta Verapaz, has conducted training and
awareness-raising workshops for
men on gender theory and health in order to make
men’s groups more aware of the issue and help reduce inequalities between
men and women.

Protection of the family

In order to take legislative measures to reduce and eradicate domestic
violence and promote equality of rights between spouses, the
State of Guatemala
promulgated Congressional Decree No. 97-96 containing the “Act on the
Prevention, Punishment and Eradication
of Domestic Violence”.

The study on domestic violence carried out in 1991 by the “Women,
Health and Development” programme of the Ministry of
Public Health and
Social Welfare, ONAM, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the Ministry
of Development, the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF shows that
there are many battered women in our society. The physical, psychological and
sexual
abuse of which they are victims is a violation of human rights.

The Act on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Domestic Violence
establishes that the State must set up, through the Human
Rights Procurator, a
body responsible for coordinating the holding of workshops, classes, seminars
and lectures for male and female
judges, court employees and staff of the Public
Prosecutor’s Office, the Attorney-General’s Office and other
institutions
involved in enforcing the Act, so that they are better informed
about domestic violence and its consequences. The Act also indicates
that the
Attorney-General’s Office is the lead agency in charge of public policy
for the eradication of domestic violence.

To comply with the Act’s provisions, the institutions concerned have
carried out a variety of actions.

The Office of the Human Rights Procurator, through the Office for the
Defence of Women’s Human Rights set up in 1991 to protect,
defend and
promote women’s human rights, has provided the following services:

1. Recovery counselling for women victims of domestic violence;

2. Legal advice for women who file complaints with the Human Rights
Procurator;

3. Psychological care;

4. Advocacy for the establishment of a Permanent Forum for Action to Combat
Violence against Women;

5. Training for judicial support staff so that they can deal with cases of
domestic violence;

6. Operation of support networks with the various women’s
organizations in the country’s interior for dealing with cases
of
aggression and violence against women;

7. Help in setting up new bodies or groups in the country’s
interior.

The Attorney-General’s Office, as the lead agency for policies for the
eradication of domestic violence, has organized the
following activities through
its Women’s Rights Unit:

1. Lectures in the country’s interior on domestic violence, its
side-effects and the protection afforded by the corresponding
judicial
bodies;

The Public Prosecutor’s Office, through its Organic Act contained in
Congressional Decree No. 40-94, set up eight criminal
prosecution sections,
including the Women’s Section responsible under article 37 of the Act for
prosecuting cases involving
one or more women and related to their status as
women, whether as plaintiffs or as defendants. The women’s Section began
activities
on 1 March 1995, with a staff comprising a chief prosecutor, two
deputy prosecutors, four assistant prosecutors, four officials,
a woman
psychologist, a secretary and an administrative secretary.

The Women’s Section carries out the following activities:

1. It provides medical care for victims through the Department of Forensic
Medicine;

2. It provides comprehensive care to meet the needs of victims, in the form
of legal, psychological, medical and social assistance.

In the period from 1995 to March 1998, the Section dealt with 4,208 cases,
the main offences being domestic violence, threats, assault,
child abuse,
abduction of minors, physical injury, sexual abuse and rape.

In order to obtain statistics on domestic violence, governmental and
non-governmental organizations set up a National Coordinating
Office for the
Prevention of Domestic Violence and designed a standard form for the reporting
of complaints of domestic violence.
The Coordinating Office’s activities
include publicizing the Act on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of
Domestic
Violence and training public employees and judicial officials in the
application of the Act and the use of the standard form.

Article 6

Elimination of prostitution

Prostitution in Guatemala is a socio-cultural phenomenon which is entrenched
in society as a result of patriarchal patterns that
have a major impact on
children and adolescents. Recent studies have shown that prostitution among
Guatemalan women is not a phenomenon
in which the female population are sexual
deviants or carriers of pathogenic elements that threaten the health of the male
population;
rather, it is a process intrinsic to society in which women are
enslaved and exploited.

The factors which influence this phenomenon are socio-economic, cultural and
political. The situation of extreme poverty has caused
many young people and
adults to engage in marginal income-generating activities.

Another dominant feature of this phenomenon is that the prostitution of
thousands of girls has its roots in certain negative aspects
of family life,
such as the abandonment, ill-treatment and intolerance that girls suffer within
the home, and that make them so desperate
that they run away from home or get
themselves thrown out.

According to various studies, most girls or teenage girls who become
prostitutes first had sex when they were still children (aged
8 to 11), and the
rest started having sex soon after puberty. A study of child prostitution in
Guatemala carried out in 1994 by the
organizations Child Hope, Pro Niño y
Niña Centroamericanos (PRONICE) and UNICEF found that girl prostitutes
come from
the poorest sectors of Guatemalan society.

According to a study by the Commission for the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (PRODEN) on the legal aspects of prostitution,
laws do exist for
dealing with the problem of prostitution, especially child prostitution.
However, they are ambiguous in that they
both prohibit and condone prostitution.
They prohibit and punish it when it is engaged in by third parties, but by
virtue of a kind
of sexist morality they condone it when it is engaged in freely
by adult women, as if the fact that they are adults means that they
are spared
the humiliation and degradation that it entails.

As the various studies show, prostitution is not illegal in Guatemala and
sex workers are subject to regulations for the control
of sexually transmitted
diseases. As a result, they have to comply with the following provisions:

1. They have to register with the health centre where they live;

2. They must obtain a health card and a book for recording their
check-ups;

3. They must undergo periodic gynaecological exams at intervals to be
determined by the centre which performs them;

4. They must produce their identity card and check-up book for the health
service authorities, health inspectors or the police to
show when they last had
a check-up.

Legal framework

Chapter V of Guatemala’s Penal Code, entitled “Corruption of
Minors”, establishes in article 188 that “A
person who in any way
promotes, facilitates or encourages the prostitution or sexual corruption of a
minor, even if the victim consents
to take part in or watch sexual acts, shall
be subject to two to six years’ imprisonment”.

Article 189. Aggravated corruption. “The penalty indicated in the
preceding article shall be increased by two thirds when any
of the following
circumstances exist: 1. The victim was under the age of 12; 2. The act was
committed for purposes of profit or to
satisfy the wishes of a third party; 3.
Deception, violence or abuse of authority were used to bring it about; 4. The
corruption
took the form of perverse, premature or excessive sexual acts; 5. The
perpetrator was a direct older relative, brother, guardian
or person entrusted
with the education, safekeeping or care of the victim; 6. The acts referred to
in the preceding article were
carried out on a regular basis”.

Article 190. Inducement by means of a promise or agreement. “A person
who by means of a promise or agreement, even if it appears
licit, induces or
causes the prostitution or sexual corruption of a minor shall be subject to one
to three years’ imprisonment”.

The same penalty is imposed on a person who, for any reason or on any
pretext, assists or supports the continuing prostitution or
sexual corruption of
a minor or the minor’s presence in the houses or places concerned.

Chapter VI of the Penal Code contains provisions on the traffic in women and
the exploitation of prostitution:

Article 191. Procurement. “A person who, for purposes of profit or to
satisfy the wishes of a third party, promotes, facilitates
or encourages
prostitution, without distinction as to gender, shall be subject to a fine of
500 to 2,000 quetzales.

A person who, for his or her own benefit, engages in the activities referred
to in the preceding paragraph shall be subject to a
fine of 300 to 1,000
quetzales”.

Article 192. Aggravated procurement. “The penalties indicated in the
preceding article shall be increased by one third in the
following cases: 1. The
victim was a minor; 2. The perpetrator was a direct relative, guardian or person
entrusted with the education,
safekeeping or care of the victim; 3. Violence,
deception or abuse of authority were used”.

Article 193. Pimping. “A person not covered by the preceding articles
of this chapter who lives, wholly or in part, off a person
or persons engaging
in prostitution or off the earnings derived from such prostitution shall be
subject to a fine of 500 to 3,000
quetzales”.

Article 194. Traffic in persons. “A person who in any way promotes,
facilitates or encourages the entry of women to the country,
or their departure
from it, for the purpose of engaging in prostitution shall be subject to one to
three years’ imprisonment
and a fine of 500 to 3,000 quetzales.

The same penalty shall apply to a person who engages in the activities
referred to in the preceding paragraph, but with men.

The penalty shall be increased by two thirds if any of the circumstances
referred to in article 189 of this Code exist”.

Article 195. Indecent exposure. “A person who, in a public place or a
place open or exposed to the public, engages in or makes
others engage in
obscene acts shall be subject to a fine of 200 to 2,000 quetzales”.

Article 196. Obscene publications and shows. “A person who publishes,
manufactures or reproduces obscene books, writings, images
or objects, as well
as a person who exhibits, distributes or circulates them, shall be subject to a
fine of 300 to 2,000 quetzales”.

The above provisions had only limited application in Guatemala, because of
two phenomena that can be observed in Guatemalan society:

1. The actions described are viewed in Guatemalan society as being part of
the development of male culture, a situation which hampers
efforts to eliminate
such patterns of conduct;

2. People are afraid to exercise their right to report such acts to the
competent authorities because society is indifferent to problems
of this kind,
viewing them as family problems with little or no impact on society.

Action in favour of female sex workers

Since 14 February 1996, the non-governmental Guatemalan Association for AIDS
Prevention and Control (AGPCS) has been implementing
the “Sala”
project, the objectives of which are:

1. To empower female sex workers in order to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS
and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) on their lives;

2. To promote the physical, psychological and social well-being of female
sex workers who come to the “Sala”;

3. To provide a space that builds female sex workers’ self-esteem and
promotes sisterhood through the experience of community
living;

4. To develop employment training workshops to which female sex workers can
be referred.

In pursuit of these objectives, the project operates a shelter for female
sex workers where they are valued and respected as human
beings and as members
of society deserving of equal treatment. The shelter, called the “Casa
Verde”, offers:

1. Emotional support, with care provided by women psychologists;

2. Medical care, including general medicine, family planning, birth control,
treatment of venereal diseases, testing for HIV/AIDS
and syphilis, Pap smears
and contraception;

3. Free dental care;

4. A gym and free aerobics classes;

5. Education, in the form of workshops and talks, to build self-esteem and
give women control over their own bodies;

6. Basic washing facilities, room and board.

Other objectives of the “Sala” project include helping and
encouraging female sex workers to organize so that they can
campaign actively
for their labour and social demands; creating a community of female sex workers;
and, in 1999, organizing a meeting
of female sex workers in the metropolitan
area to analyse developments with regard to their human and labour rights.

From 1 to 3 October 1997, the first meeting of Latin American Sex Workers,
entitled “Latin American prostitutes in their own
voice: Meeting to
discuss needs and actions”, was held in San José, Costa Rica. The
problems and needs identified included:

(a) In the health area, health-care discrimination, high cost of medical
check-ups, lack of support from the Ministry of Health in
dealing with STDs and
HIV, difficulty of using condoms because clients refuse to use them, and abuse
of the health card, resulting
in police repression;

(b) In the legal area, traffic in women and girls, encouraged by limitations
on the free movement of female sex workers; absence
of laws treating sex work as
an occupation, which means that there is no access to social security, health
care, retirement plans,
housing or education;

(c) In the social area, prostitution is viewed as a crime, with the result
that government services discriminate socially against
sex workers; there is
also discrimination against their children and their family, and their human
rights are violated. Accordingly,
the community of female sex workers believes
that there is an urgent need to recognize the dignity of sex workers, eliminate
repressive
treatment, provide human rights training to members of the police and
grant sex workers social benefits.

The following actions, among others, were proposed at the meeting:

1. Build a network (Latin American Human Rights Network for Female Sex
Workers) to facilitate communication among the organizations
of different
countries and carry out joint activities;

2. Complain to the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Health
Organization (WHO) and national groups about the failure
to comply with
regulations for combating HIV/AIDS and STDs;

8. Strengthen national and international organizations of female sex
workers, organizing periodic events.

The non-governmental organization “Sólo para mujeres”
(Only for women) is a non-profit educational centre which
began activities in
1991, working with street children and children at high social risk. Its aims
include supporting and motivating
young girls not only to leave the street but
also to participate in the country’s development process.

The centre’s programmes and projects are aimed at enhancing
women’s status so that they can develop their full potential
and so that
women and men can work together to bring about a society of solidarity, peace
and justice, acting within social groups
as defenders of policies that promote
equality between men and women.

“Sólo para mujeres” operates three schools:

1. School/Home No. 1. “Open home”. Its aim is to get girls to
leave the street for a better option, basically education,
so that they can
develop their full potential. This is done by getting them used to having a home
to go to where they receive instruction
based on their aptitudes, such as
painting classes, sports and recreation. It is used as a form of therapy for
building their self-esteem
and feelings of self-worth. The girls are given
breakfast, a simple lunch and light refreshments.

2. School/Detox shelter. This school is for girls who have problems of drug
addiction. The girls have to stay six months to a year
in order to overcome
their problem. The school provides formal education, technical training, sports,
self-esteem workshops, leadership
training, medical care and psychological
care.

3. School/Home for mothers and girls who have recently left the street. This
home is for mothers and girls who begin their process
of change in Home No. 1
and for young women who are at high risk.

Prevention programmes include: prevention of mistreatment and sexual abuse;
participation of girls and the community in settling
disputes; advice on how to
file complaints with the competent authorities; and reproductive health
education.

Article 7

Participation in political and public life

Under Guatemalan law, Guatemalans acquire full citizenship rights at 18
years of age and their right to participate in political
life is recognized.
Article 136 of the Constitution, under chapter III of the section on civic and
political rights and duties, establishes the following rights and duties of the
citizen:

(a) To be registered with the Citizens’ Registry;

(b) To vote and be elected;

(c) To ensure that elections are free and genuine and that the electoral
process is fair;

(d) To run for public office;

(e) To take part in political activities;

(f) To defend the principle that people must take turns in the office of
President of the Republic and that Presidents may not be
re-elected.

At the time of the population census conducted by INE in 1994 Guatemala had
a population of 4,228,305 women and 4,103,569 men. According
to the
Citizens’ Registry, as of 31 March 1998, 1,631,443 women were registered
to vote, accounting for 41.15 per cent of all
those registered. Of these women,
1,079,009 were literate and 552,434 were illiterate. As of the same date,
2,333,227 men, or 58.85
per cent of all those registered, were registered to
vote, of whom 1,635,682 were literate and 697,545 were illiterate.

Thus, while women account for 50.7 per cent of Guatemala’s population,
the percentage of women registered to vote is low.

The 1945 Constitution granted women full citizenship rights, including the
right to vote, which was optional for women but compulsory for men. It also
gave
women the right to run for elected office, provided that they could read and
write.

Citizens registered to vote, by sex as of 31 March 1998

Source: Prepared using data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Literary situation of citizens, by sex

Source: Prepared using data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

The 1945 Constitution gave literate women full citizenship rights and the
right to vote, but perpetuated discrimination against illiterate women by
withholding
full citizenship rights. It made voting optional for women and
compulsory for men and gave literate women the right to run for elected
office.

The 1956 Constitution maintained the discrimination against illiterate women
but made voting compulsory for literate women.

The 1965 Constitution granted universal suffrage, without discrimination,
for the first time, making it compulsory for literate women and optional for
illiterate women, and gave all women the right to run for elected office.
Articles 135 and 136 of the 1985 Constitution extended citizenship rights and
duties to all Guatemalans. Progress was also made as regards gender, with
article 4 of the 1985 Constitution establishing equality of men and women.

Despite legislative advances in the area of full citizenship rights, social
indicators confirm that women’s political and social
participation is
limited in terms of access to leadership positions, decision-making and elected
office.

Access to public office

In the 1950s, there was only one woman member of the Congress of the
Republic; in the 1970s, there were four and in the 1980s, six.
The return to
participatory democracy in 1986 created more opportunities for women to
participate in public life.

In the 1990 elections, there was only one woman candidate for Vice-President
(Aracely Conde de Paiz); in the 1995-1996 elections,
there was one woman
candidate for President (Flor de María Alvarado Suárez de
Solis).

Currently, in the executive branch, out of 70 posts of Vice-Minister or
Secretary, only eight are occupied by women; there is one
woman Minister of
State.

According to a 1997 overview of the situation of Guatemalan women from 1986
to 1995 produced by SOSEP, of the 107 members of the
legislative branch, 100
were men and only seven were women. Since then, the legislative branch has been
restructured; it now has
80 members, of whom 13 are women and 67 are men.
Between 1990 and 1994, the Congress of the Republic was twice presided over by
women.

In the judiciary, 31.48 per cent of senior positions in the Supreme Court
are held by women.

There are a total of 630 professionals (391 men and 239 women) working in
the Public Prosecutor’s Office, with the following
ranks: assistant
prosecutor grades I and II, chief prosecutor, district prosecutor, prosecutor
for the metropolitan area, deputy
district prosecutor and prosecution officer
grades I, II and III.

According to data provided by the Department for the Administration of
Posts, Remuneration and Administrative Auditing of the National
Office of the
Civil Service, based on the payroll supplied by the State Accounting Department
of the Ministry of Public Finance,
in 1997 women occupied 45,824 posts, or 40.4
per cent of all posts, in the various Ministries of State.

In the executive branch, as of May 1997 women occupied 84 senior management
posts, or 21.2 per cent of all such posts.

If the number of posts occupied by women in the various branches of the
State is expressed as a percentage of the total number of
posts in all three
branches of government, we get the following statistics:

(a) Women in the executive branch account for 39.1 per cent of all
government posts:

(b) Women in the legislative branch account for 0.1 per cent;

(c) Women in the judiciary account for 0.9 per cent.

Breakdown of posts, by sex and branch
of government,

expressed as a percentage of all government posts

May 1997

Executive branch

Source: National Office of the Civil Service.

Breakdown of posts, by sex and branch of
government,

expressed as a percentage of all government posts

May 1997

Legislative branch

Source: National Office of the Civil Service.

Breakdown of posts, by sex and branch of
government,

expressed as a percentage of all government posts

May 1997

Judiciary

Source: National Office of the Civil Service.

Breakdown of posts, by sex and branch of
government,

expressed as a percentage of all government posts

May 1997

Executive and Legislative Branches and Judiciary

Source: National Office of the Civil Service.

Measures taken to eliminate discrimination against women in traditionally
male occupations include the restructuring of the Guatemalan
armed forces. In
1972, women began to be admitted to the armed forces. To do so, they had to
attend Mexico’s military academy,
from which they graduated as officers
with a degree in military health and hygiene and were subsequently assigned to
posts in the
Guatemalan armed forces.

In 1996, military training and education centres expanded the range of
subjects that women could study with a view to a career in
the armed forces: (a)
at the Military Aviation School, they could graduate with a Bachelor’s
degree in science or arts with
a specialization in aviation mechanics; and (b)
at the Adolfo V. Hall Institute, they could graduate with a Bachelor’s
degree
in science or arts and the rank of reserve sub-lieutenant.

In 1997, the Polytechnic School, one of the main academic training centres
for army officers, launched a programme under which women
with a high school
diploma can be admitted and study for three years, earning the rank of
sub-lieutenant, as well as a diploma in
human resources and technology that is
endorsed by the Francisco Marroquín private university.

Measures to give women access to political life

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which was set up by Decree-Law No. 30-83 to
organize, direct and oversee the electoral process and
educate citizens for
political participation, adopted Agreement No. 290-97 of 23 December 1997
creating a Civic and Electoral Training,
Dissemination and Education Unit
(UCADE), under its authority, to plan, programme and carry out activities to
raise public awareness
with respect to participation in the country’s
political life. This is done through specific civic education projects aimed
at
the population in general and people with full citizenship rights in particular.

To encourage women to take part in political life, voter registration
campaigns make a special point of appealing to women to register
and emphasizing
their right to participate. In the publicity campaign to encourage citizens to
vote in the 1998 municipal elections,
posters were circulated in the
municipalities concerned, calling on people, particularly women, to vote. The
posters depicted a man’s
and a woman’s face, with the slogan:
“Juntos a la par, porque tenemos los mismos derechos, votemos”
(together as
equals, because we have the same rights, let’s vote).

The State guarantees the free formation and functioning of political
organizations. Thus, on 22 March 1996, at the initiative of
parliamentarian Ilsa
Díaz de Zelaya and with the backing of UNICEF and the Central American
Parliament, the National Forum
of Women of Political Parties of Guatemala was
founded, comprising 40 members representing seven political parties:
Unión
del Centro Nacional, Partido de Avanzada Nacional, Frente
Republicano Guatemalteco, Guatemalan Christian Democratic party, Unión
Democrática, Movimiento de Liberación Nacional and Frente
Democrático Nueva Guatemala.

The National Forum was legally and formally recognized on 13 November 1997,
by resolution S.R. C-R-3,997 of the Citizens’ Registry.
It has working
committees made up of a representative of each of the political parties in the
Forum, the aim being to ensure the
political participation of every member and
to agree on proposals for achieving the Forum’s goals.

The committees have now drawn up preliminary work plans and submitted them
to the Forum’s governing body for approval and subsequent
implementation.
On 8 August 1997, the first departmental forum was set up, marking the beginning
of the process of founding departmental
forums made up of representatives of the
National Forum.

The National Forum has held seven general meetings and four training
seminars, attended by 150 to 200 members, to encourage women
to participate in
party politics and make them aware of the need to build self-esteem and learn
about women’s rights.

The National Forum’s training and awareness-raising activities include
the production of a leaflet explaining its nature and
aims.

At the First Meeting of Central American Forums of Women of Political
Parties, held on 19 and 20 March 1998 at the Central American
Parliament, Flora
Escobar de Ramos, President of the National Forum of Guatemala, described some
of the constraints on women’s
participation in political life:

Political constraints

1. The requirements and procedures which have to be fulfilled in order to
obtain legal recognition and approval of the statutes,
which involves an
investment of time, legal advice, etc.;

2. Women’s low level of participation within political parties;

3. Political parties’ lack of public credibility, which limits
women’s participation in political life;

4. Absence of legal mechanisms to support women’s participation within
political parties, so that they are denied the opportunity
to demonstrate their
abilities and work and advance politically, thereby exercising their right to
active citizenship as regards
the right to vote and to be elected;

5. Sexual discrimination against women in political parties;

6. The culture of exclusion that characterizes the exercise of positions of
power, which are considered inappropriate for women.

Socio-economic constraints

1. Institutions which provide financial support for women’s projects
do not have specific budget lines for training women for
political life;

2. Lack of economic resources limits women’s access to elected office
and this contributes to women’s lack of political
participation.

The Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs produced a study, entitled “Democracy
and women’s political
participation in Guatemala”, which shows that political parties give women
few opportunities to
run for elected office, using them only as party
campaigners. This illustrates the inequality that exists within political
parties,
as demonstrated by the following charts for candidates for office in
the most recent elections, held in 1995-1996.

Source: Prepared with data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Candidates for President of the Republic,

by sex

1995-1996 general elections

Candidates for Vice-President, by sex

1995-1996 general elections

Source: Prepared with data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Candidates for member of the National Congress,

by sex

1995-1996 elections

Source: Prepared with data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Candidates for alternate member for Guatemala of
the

Central American Parliament, by sex

Source: Prepared with data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Candidates for municipal corporations,

by sex

1995-1996 elections

Source: Prepared with data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Women and Legal Reforms project of the National Office for Women’s
Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

In the elections for President of the Republic in the 1995-1996 general
elections, women accounted for 5.26 per cent of presidential
candidates. There
were no women candidates for Vice-President. Women accounted for 16.7 per cent
of candidates for member of the
National Congress; 9.6 per cent of candidates
for member of a district council; and 10 per cent of candidates for member and
20 per
cent of candidates for alternate member for Guatemala of the Central
American Parliament.

In the municipal elections, women accounted for 1.5 per cent of candidates
and men accounted for 98.6 per cent. In the 1995-1996
elections, 1.7 per cent of
members of municipal corporations were women, while men accounted for 98.3 per
cent. In the mayoral elections
in Guatemala City, there were no women
candidates.

Although the law has created greater opportunities for women to participate
in political life, the indicators show that Guatemalan
society continues to view
public life as an exclusive male preserve. This is highlighted by the situation
with regard to elected
office and leadership positions in political parties.

In order to expand Guatemalan women’s participation not only in
elected office and as officials or employees of the public
administration but
also in a broader sense, based on three factors: the freedoms embodied in the
Constitution; the commitments made by Guatemala in ratifying the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; and
the
commitments made in the Agreement on Social and Economic Aspects and the
Agrarian Situation (part I, sect. B, para. 13 (a)) and
in the Agreement on
the Strengthening of Civilian Power and on the Role of the Armed Forces in a
Democratic Society (part VI, para.
59 (b)); the Women and Legal Reforms project
of ONAM, the National Forum of Women of Political Parties and the Women’s
Civic
and Political Coalition transmitted to the Congressional Committee on
Women, Children and the Family a set of draft amendments to
the Elections and
Political Parties Act.

The proposed amendments to Decree-Law No. 1-85 and the reforms thereof
contained in Decrees Nos. 74-87, 51-87 and 55-90 involve introducing
a minimum
quota of 30 per cent for women’s participation in the decision-making
organs of party organizations, in the membership
of committees and in the
composition of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

On 29 September 1998, the Congressional Committee on Women, Children and the
Family presented to the full Congress the legislative
proposal on quotas for
women’s political participation. The proposal was sent to the
Congressional Committee on Elections for
an opinion. On 11 November 1998, the
Congress moved by an absolute majority that the draft amendments to the
Elections and Political
Parties Act relating to women’s participation in
party politics did not require an opinion of the Congressional Committee on
Elections; instead, it considered the amendments in first reading and added them
to the package of electoral reforms currently before
the Congressional Committee
on Elections.

Public action in favour of political participation

It is important to mention that indigenous participation in political and
social life in Guatemala has increased, thanks to constitutional
provisions
protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, who constitute the majority of
Guatemala’s population. Indigenous peoples’
political participation
is reflected in the election of three indigenous women to the Congress of the
Republic.

Another action which contributed to the participation of indigenous men and
women in civic and political life was the campaign, spearheaded
by Nobel Peace
Prize winner and indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú Tum, appealing
directly to the indigenous population in
Maya languages to vote in the most
recent elections.

With regard to the participation of national, regional, departmental,
municipal and community authorities in promoting development,
civil society and
the State, in the form of non-governmental and governmental organizations, with
financial assistance from the Institute
for International Cooperation (IIZ), the
Swiss Association for International Cooperation (Helvetas), IBIS-Denmark, the
Friends Service
Committee and the Netherlands Organization for International
Development Cooperation (Novib), developed a participatory process,
involving
over 40 social organizations from various sectors of the country, for drafting
amendments to Decree No. 52-87 containing
the Urban and Rural Development
Councils Act.

The proposed amendments provide for the active participation of women, based
on a document prepared by the Gender Studies Team of
the research department of
the University of San Carlos and validated by a process of national consultation
on the participation
of indigenous and ladina women at all levels of the
system of urban and rural development councils. This consultation process was
carried out in 1996 and
1997 in the departments of Guatemala, Alta Verapaz, Baja
Verapaz, Chiquimula, Zacapa, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán and
Sololá,
where most indigenous and ladina women live. The proposed
amendments were also taken up and promoted by other women’s organizations
in the country, making them
representative of the women’s movement
nationwide.

Social participation

In title I, chapter I, article 4 of the Constitution, the State of Guatemala
establishes equality between men and women. It also recognizes the right to
freedom of association without
discrimination of any kind in its article 102
(q), subject to the requirements of the Labour Code governing the functioning of
trade
unions.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security
(1996), there are 1,118 trade unions, 46 federations and
5 confederations
legally registered in Guatemala, with a total membership of 88,813 workers, of
whom 64,903 work in the private sector
and 26,920 work in the public sector.
This means that 3.6 per cent of the economically active population belong to a
trade union.

The number of women belonging to a trade union, federation or confederation
is 8,324, divided equally between the public and private
sectors. Of these,
1,516 live in rural areas and 6,808 in urban areas. Within trade union
organizations, there are very few women
at the leadership level (executive
committee and advisory committee); most women belong to the rank and file.

With regard to women’s participation in other activities in society,
studies show that of the 199,223 members of the cooperative
movement, 150,838
are men and 48,385 are women.

In the Federation of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, 14 per cent of
members are women, who engage in industrial, commercial and
service activities.
Women’s presence in the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural,
Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations
(CACIF), which represents the
country’s business sector, is limited.

Article 8

Representation of the Government at the international level

According to the latest figures provided by the secretariat of the Personnel
Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there
are 100 women in the
foreign service, distributed as follows:

Embassies

7 Ambassadors

1 Alternate Representative

5 Minister Counsellors

1 Counsellor

13 First Secretaries and Consuls

5 First Secretaries

4 First Secretaries

1 Second Secretary

17 Third Secretaries

2 Cultural Attachées

2 Commercial Attachées ad honorem

2 Cultural Attachées ad honorem

Consulates

3 Consuls-General

3 Consuls

12 Vice-Consuls

11 Third Secretaries

2 Commercial Attachées

1 Secretary

Missions

1 Alternate Representative

1 Minister Counsellor

2 First Secretaries

1 Second Secretary

2 Third Secretaries.

The National Office for Women’s Affairs submitted to the Congress of
the Republic draft amendments to the Diplomatic Service
Act providing for equal
employment conditions for men and women.

Article 9

Nationality of women

Under Guatemalan law, nationality is acquired by jus sanguinis and
jus solis. Women thus have equal rights with men to acquire, change or
retain their nationality. Married women have the right to change or
retain their
nationality and their children have the right to acquire their parents’
nationality.

Article 144. Nationality of origin. “Children born in the territory of
the Republic of Guatemala, on board Guatemalan ships
and aircraft, or abroad to
Guatemalan fathers or mothers shall be Guatemalans by origin, with the exception
of children of diplomatic
officials or persons performing legally comparable
functions.

No one who is Guatemalan by origin may be deprived of his or her
nationality”.

Article 145. Nationality by virtue of being Central American.
“Nationals by birth of the Republics which constituted the Central
American Federation shall also be considered Guatemalans by origin if they
become permanent residents of Guatemala and state before
a competent authority
that they wish to be Guatemalan.

In this case, they may retain their nationality of origin, without prejudice
to the provisions of Central American treaties or conventions”.

Article 146. Naturalization. “Persons who become naturalized citizens
by law shall be considered Guatemalan.

Naturalized Guatemalans shall have the same rights as Guatemalans by origin,
subject to the limitations imposed by this Constitution”.

Article 87 of the Civil Code provides: “A Guatemalan woman married to
an alien shall retain her nationality, unless she chooses
to adopt the
nationality of her husband, in which case she must make an express statement to
that effect in the marriage proceedings”.

Article 10

Access to education

Guatemala has the second highest rate of female illiteracy in Latin America.
Sixty per cent of Guatemalan women are illiterate and
nearly 80 per cent of
these are Maya women living in rural areas.

There are problems with regard to the levels of school attendance, retention
and advancement of girls and boys, especially in rural
areas and among the
Maya-speaking population.

Educational indicators

According to Ministry of Education data for 1996, far fewer girls than boys
attend school, especially in rural areas, where girls
account for 44.5 per cent
of total enrolment.

Approximately half a million girls between the ages of 7 and 14 are not
enrolled in primary school, compared with 300,000 boys.

The situation is worse in the higher grades of primary education. by sixth
grade, girls account for only 41 per cent of enrolment
in rural areas.

Drop-out rates for girls are high throughout all six grades of primary
education, especially in rural indigenous areas and in some
departments in
particular. Sixty-six per cent of girls in rural areas drop out of school before
third grade and only one in eight
girls completes sixth grade.

The above statistics can be explained by the barriers that limit
girls’ and women’s access to education, which include
the
following:

1. Economic barriers: direct costs, which are high for parents and which
include the costs of school enrolment, books, materials
and supplies, uniforms
and shoes; opportunity costs for the family, such as the loss of the
girl’s contribution to housework
and the loss of potential income when
girls do not assist with the work done by the family.

2. Cultural barriers: people’s perceptions that girls’ personal
safety may be threatened when they walk to school along
deserted roads or paths
or when they interact with boys at school; the predominance of traditional roles
for women, which establish
male control and protection and result in an absence
or shortage of women schoolteachers.

3. Educational barriers: lack of open-mindedness towards gender issues and
equitable participation of boys and girls; schoolteachers’
lack of
training in equal opportunity issues; lack of primary schools offering the full
six grades; limited bilingual education coverage;
lack of textbooks and
educational materials in schools. Also, administrative deficiencies with regard
to school meals and the provision
of educational materials for boys and girls;
poor educational quality, reflected in the absence of active methodologies to
facilitate
learning and interaction between boys and girls; absence of an
education-oriented approach to changing attitudes with a view to the
all-round
development of the personality as a factor in promoting educational
participation.

4. Infrastructure barriers: the distance that children have to travel to
school, which is associated with the issue of girls’
perceived lack of
safety; inadequate access roads to schools; lack of basic amenities in
communities (electricity, drinking water,
toilets, transportation).

5. Nutrition and health barriers: these include chronic malnutrition and
delayed physical growth.

Legal framework governing education

The Constitution of Guatemala establishes the State’s obligation to
provide education to its inhabitants without discrimination in order to
ensure
the all-round development of the human person. It is therefore a right and an
obligation that all Guatemalans should receive
early, pre-school, primary and
basic education.

Under Congressional Decree No. 114-97, the Ministry of Education, as a State
institution, is responsible for applying the legal regime
governing in-school
and out-of-school services for the education of Guatemalans.

The National Education Act contained in Decree No. 12-91 establishes that
education is an inherent right of the human person and an obligation of the
State.
The education system is an organized, interrelated set of elements,
processes and actors through which education is imparted in a
manner consistent
with the characteristics, needs and interests of Guatemala’s historical
and cultural reality.

According to the Human Development Report 1996, the adult literacy
rate was 47.6 per cent for women and 61.7 per cent for men in 1993, based on
statistics compiled by the National
Office for Women’s Affairs and
included in Guatemala’s report to the Fourth World Conference on Women;
73.4 per cent
of all illiterate women belong to one of the country’s
various indigenous peoples.

According to data from the 1991 National Housing and Population Census, the
illiteracy rate for Guatemalans aged over 15 was 40.7
per cent in 1990. In 1991,
the figure was 40.4 per cent. The problem was most acute among rural women,
whose illiteracy rate was
60 per cent, and indigenous women, whose illiteracy
rate was 74 per cent.

Education policies

The public policies of the Ministry of Education are aimed at strengthening
the education system and meeting the population’s
needs in order to reach
the Government’s targets and comply with the Peace Agreements and the Code
for Children and Youth.
Their goals are: increased coverage, education reform,
better teaching quality and community participation.

The Ministry of Education has been actively involved in promoting education
for girls and is aware of its role in implementing ongoing
projects and
programmes to expand coverage and reduce drop-out and repetition rates. To that
end, it defined the action to be taken
to promote education for girls in a set
of Policies and Strategies for Girls’ Education 1993-1998, namely:

1. Promote their enrolment, retention and advancement within the school
system so that they can participate actively in the development
of the family,
the community and the country. Action to this end includes: awarding
scholarships; distributing textbooks, educational
materials, school supplies,
uniforms and school meals; making the school day and the school calendar more
flexible to enable girls
to attend and stay in school; emphasizing in training
days and at meetings of teachers’ circles the importance and benefits
of
girls’ retention and advancement in school; identifying schools where
there is a growing demand for places for girls in
order to provide adequate
teacher coverage; and appointing bilingual schoolteachers in areas with a
monolingual or bilingual indigenous
population.

2. Focus specific contents on education for girls in curricula, study plans
and educational materials, taking into account the needs,
interests and way of
life of the country’s different population groups.

Action to implement this policy includes: strengthening the national
curriculum with contents that promote education for girls, taking
into account
the different ways of life of the Maya population; incorporating specific
contents that foster respect for girls’
dignity, their self-confidence and
their value as individuals; supporting projects for the production of
motivational educational
materials to promote education for girls; ensuring that
textbooks used in primary schools are produced with contents on equity for
both
boys and girls; changing the assessment system for pre-school up to the third
grade of primary education in order to reduce
the drop-out rate for girls and
increase their rate of advancement within the school system.

3. Make the school community, particularly parents, aware of the necessity
and importance of taking action to promote education for
girls.

Action to implement this policy includes: conducting information campaigns
on the importance and benefits of education for girls
that will motivate the
entire population (girls, parents, teachers, authorities, etc.); promoting
girls’ education through
the communication media, including television,
radio, the press, leaflets, theatre troupes, songs, exhibitions, competitions,
events,
etc.; ensuring that formal education is in keeping with the realities
and needs of the country’s rural communities, so as to
arouse and maintain
interest in girls’ involvement in the educational process.

4. Promote coordinated, creative and committed action among sectors decisive
for the country’s development, such as the private
and public sectors, the
church, academia and non-governmental organizations, so that they undertake
activities in favour of girls’
education.

This policy is being carried out through the Ministry of Education, as the
lead agency responsible for: ensuring that the specific
policies and strategies
of the programme for girls lead to practical action to promote girls’
retention and advancement in
school; encouraging the country’s social and
economic sectors to participate in executing projects in favour of girls’
education; and strengthening and consolidating the “Let’s educate
girls” commission.

As regards expanding the coverage of the education system at the pre-school
and primary levels, with emphasis on rural areas, girls
and intercultural
bilingual education, the Ministry of Education has been pursuing educational
approaches that seek to involve more
of the population in the education system
so as to secure greater community support for and participation in the
organization and
operation of services. According to figures from the
data-processing unit, a total of 2,306,543 pupils were enrolled in the 1997
school year and there was a 6.86 per cent increase, compared with 1996, in the
numbers of girls who enrolled.

The programmes implemented by the Ministry of Education to promote
boys’ and girls’ participation in education include
the
following:

National programme for self-managed educational development

This programme takes a decentralized approach to the expansion of
educational coverage, involving the transfer of financial resources
to
communities which have no educational services to enable them to recruit
teachers and set up support programmes, and the provision
of technical
assistance to enable them to manage their own school. The community organizes
itself into an education committee for
this purpose. The programme permitted the
provision of primary education to 67,193 boys and girls in rural areas in
1996.

Community centres for accelerated pre-school education

This programme of accelerated pre-school education represents an alternative
approach to the provision of pre-school education coverage.
It was launched with
technical assistance from UNICEF and is run by parents, community leaders and
students from the country’s
training colleges for nursery school
teachers.

The programme is in operation in 11 of the country’s departments and
served 3,427 boys and girls aged five and six in 1995,
15,620 in 1996 and 37,000
in 1997. There were 147 centres in 1995, 443 in 1996 and 950 in 1997.

Evening schoolday programme

The purpose of this programme is to expand educational coverage in areas
with a high density of school-age children. It involves
organizing multiple
schooldays so that the same school premises can be used for classes at different
times of the day.

Programme for girls

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided
technical and financial support to the Ministry of Education
through a project
for strengthening basic education that includes the programme for girls,
launched in 1991. The programme was initially
managed by the Department of
Education within the Ministry of Education, but was later transferred to the
Human Resources Development
and Curriculum Reform Scheme (SIMAC).

The purpose of the programme was to increase the educational coverage and
retention of girls in rural areas. One of the programme’s
most significant
contributions to the school enrolment and retention of girls has been the
provision of 30,000 scholarships worth
a total of 3.3 million quetzales (first
phase, 1997), for girls enrolled in the first to fourth grades of official
primary schools.
This scholarship programme for rural girls is being carried out
in conjunction with the Foundation for Rural Development, which is
the executing
agency.

Other actions carried out by the programme in 1997 included supporting
schools by printing and distributing 40,000 books to strengthen
the school
microlibraries service and 1,000 instructional handbooks for teachers. As
regards publicity, 15,000 leaflets, 2,000 posters
and 1,000 newsletters were
distributed. Seminars and training workshops were held for teachers and
awareness-raising activities were
conducted for parents.

Since 1997, as part of its SIMAC work plan, the programme for girls has been
producing inputs for the incorporation of a gender perspective
in curricula,
textbooks and educational materials and in training activities. The private
sector has also contributed to the strengthening
of this programme.

“Let’s educate girls” commission

This commission was set up in 1991 following the holding of a national
meeting on the theme “Educating girls will help us develop
Guatemala”, organized by the Ministry of Education, the USAID/UNDP mission
and the National Office for Women’s Affairs.
The commission was made up of
public and private sector institutions and its basic aim was to help promote the
formal education of
Guatemalan girls by increasing their primary school
retention and advancement rates. It represented an inter-institutional,
intersectoral,
intermanaged effort to formulate policies through an education
programme. In 1995, its members decided to transform the commission
into the
“Let’s educate girls” Association, whose statutes were
approved in August 1995.

In 1992, the commission published an analysis and plan of action designed to
tackle the needs and problems encountered by girls in
attending school. With the
support of donors and executing agencies, the commission launched projects such
as the following:

1. “Educate girls” project

This project was launched in 1994 as a joint effort of the Ministry of
Education, USAID, the World Bank, the Sugar Foundation, the
Mariano and Rafael
Castillo Córdova Foundation, the Bahai Community and Rafael
Landívar University. It provided scholarships
to needy girls, assigned
social outreach workers to communities to provide academic and social support to
scholarship recipients
and formed committees of parents and community leaders to
select and monitor recipients.

The project began in 1994 and ended in 1996. Before it was executed, a
feasibility study was conducted in 90 communities where school
enrolment rates
for girls were low. The study permitted the selection of 36 schools in rural
areas with a predominantly Maya population
in the four main linguistic areas, in
the departments of Quiché, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Chimaltenango,
Suchitepéquez
and Alta Verapaz; 12 other schools were used as
controls.

In 1995, the Ibero-American association ANDE and the Japanese Government
made large donations to the “Educate girls”
project. These were used
to finance project activities and purchase project equipment.

The project provided scholarships to 337 girls in 1994, 439 girls in 1995
and 488 girls in 1996, benefiting a total of 1,264 girls.

The project’s execution made it possible to envisage strategic action
to increase the primary school retention rate for girls.

2. “A new world for girls” project

Sponsored by the Castillo Córdova Foundation with a view to a
nationwide publicity campaign on the importance of education
for girls, this
pilot project was carried out in 1993 and 1994 in eight communities of the
department of Sololá, four in the
Kaq’chikel linguistic area and
four in the Ki’ché linguistic area. The main aim was to increase
school enrolment
for girls and make parents in the communities aware of the
importance of educating girls.

A team of approximately 80 volunteers drawn from each community was set up
to conduct workshops on the issue of education.

3. “Making parents aware of the importance of education for
girls” project

Sponsored by the Mariano and Rafael Castillo Córdova Foundation, this
nationwide campaign was aimed at Maya-speaking rural
communities. Communities
would organize a parents’ committee which, assisted by a social outreach
worker, would monitor girls’
scholastic performance and participation.
Neither the girls nor the communities were given any kind of incentive, other
than the
training provided to committee members.

4. “The kitchen in my school” project

The aim of this project is to overcome nutrition and health barriers by
working in the community and in schools with mothers and
girls, focusing on
issues of preventive health and hygiene. The main goals of the project are:

1. To supplement girls’ education by transmitting practical knowledge
of health and nutrition, giving them the tools to live
more fulfilling
lives.

3. To ensure inter-institutional coordination in support of
Guatemala’s development.

The project is being carried out in more than 30 municipalities in 17
departments, including the departments of Sololá, Totonicapán,
Sacatepéquez, Progreso, Zacapa, Santa Rosa, Chimaltenango, Jutiapa,
Quetzaltenango, Alta and Baja Verapaz, Huehuetenango,
Izabal, Escuintla and
Retalhuleu. It is supported by the Central de Alimentos S.A., and some 18
non-governmental organizations are
responsible for its execution.

One important aspect of the design and execution of this project has been
the participation and institution-building of local non-governmental
organizations, which were chosen for their experience in the area of community
work. These organizations include the Coordinadora
de Mujeres Mayas, Cuna del
Sol, Los Castaños, Talita Kumi and Pasic.

The project’s education programme is structured by grades; so far,
girls in approximately 730 schools have received instruction.

Other action to increase the school retention rate for girls includes:

1. The national radio and television campaign launched by the Castillo
Córdova Foundation in 1995 under the slogan “An
educated girl is
the mother of development”. Its aim was to publicize the issue of
education for girls and the search for solutions.

The campaign was broadcast on three national television channels and by 127
radio stations, two cable companies, 19 local cable systems,
five national
newspapers and one local newspaper. It was designed for the Foundation by
Mercomún Publicidad and won a UNICEF
award for communication as the best
campaign for children in 1995.

2. In recognition of the country’s ethnic diversity, the Language
Institute of Rafael Landívar University produced and
translated into the
four main Maya languages a collection of stories for girls which emphasizes the
important role of women.

3. In 1994, the Ministry of Education set up a decentralized regional
scholarship programme for rural indigenous girls covering the
eight departments
where school enrolment rates for girls are lowest (San Marcos,
Totonicapán, Sololá, Chimaltenango,
Huehuetenango, Quiché
and Alta and Baja Verapaz), as an incentive to enable girls to enrol and remain
in the education system.

The aim of the programme was to raise retention and advancement rates for
girls by awarding scholarships to pupils in the third to
sixth grades. The
distribution of scholarships by region for the period 1994 to 1996 was as
follows:

A total of 4,582 scholarships were awarded in 1994, 6,425 in 1995 and 7,800
in 1996.

According to the scholarship disbursement report for 1996 of the Foundation
for Rural Development, a total of 5,112 scholarships
were awarded that year to
girls enrolled in 1,115 schools in 113 municipalities. The Foundation plans to
increase the number of girls
per school receiving scholarships by 40 per cent of
the total number of girls enrolled, in order to cover 36,000 girls in 2,000
schools
in the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz, San Marcos, Quiché,
Chimaltenango, Sololá and Totonicapán over
the next five
years.

4. School programme for rural girls

This programme is being executed by CARE Guatemala in the department of
Chimaltenango. Its basic aim is to ensure that girls stay
in and complete
primary school by means of education credits. It is a five-year pilot programme
which began in 1995 and involves
lending parents money for their
daughters’ education through a community bank, so as to reduce the
financial burden on parents.
The loan is granted at a monthly interest rate of
2.5 per cent, of which CARE receives 2 per cent and the girls pay the remaining
0.5 per cent into an education fund.

In 1996, the project was executed in 11 communities in five municipalities
of Chimaltenango.

5. Global girls’ education project

USAID launched this project in 1997 and will execute it for a five-year
period. It involves six countries, including Guatemala.

The intended outcomes of the project include: increasing girls’
educational opportunities by studying lessons learned and building
on the
efforts made; creating and developing flexible programmes, models and processes
which benefit girls’ education; building
capacity among the different
actors for applying and using lessons learned; building capacity among the
various actors for planning,
supporting and facilitating sustainability, in both
the public and the private sector, in educational opportunities for girls.

The Ministry of Education has implemented other programmes designed to
expand formal education coverage and increase student retention,
such as:

Distance secondary school programme

This programme offers a means of expanding basic secondary education
coverage to rural areas and was set up by agreement with the
Mexican Government.
Its aim is to support communities that are so scattered and remote that they are
not reached by ordinary education
services. It has 115 video programmes covering
subjects corresponding to the first year of secondary school.

Subsidy programme for non-profit organizations

This programme provides financial support to non-profit organizations under
a co-financing arrangement that has facilitated the school
enrolment of boys and
girls from rural areas and marginal urban areas. In 1997, 56,535 pupils
benefited from the programme. The organizations
that received subsidies were the
Asociación de Centros Educativos Mayas del Nivel Medio Rural and the
Centro Don Bosco Asociación
Fe y Alegría. The subsidies amounted
to 22,248,909 quetzales.

The assistance programmes being carried out by the Ministry of Education
include the following:

School meals programme

The aim of this programme is to improve schoolchildren’s nutrition
status through two subprogrammes, the school snack subprogramme
and the school
lunch subprogramme. Under the first of these, a snack designed to supplement
children’s diet is distributed
in official urban and rural schools
throughout the country. In 1997, 159,790,206 such snacks were distributed at a
cost of 34,591,635.02
quetzales.

The school lunch subprogramme provides a highly nutritious hot meal for boys
and girls and involves community (parent) participation.
In 1997, 24,682,963
meals per month were provided in the departments of San Marcos, Retalhuleu,
Sololá and Huehuetenango,
at a monthly cost of 16,783,989.84 quetzales. A
number of municipalities in the Chortí region were also covered through
assistance
from the National Peace Fund (FONAPAZ).

The programme has received financial support from international agencies and
private enterprise. A total of 426,645 kg of milk were
distributed to 5,434
schools in 1997, benefiting 242,126 pupils in Alta and Baja Verapaz,
Sololá, Totonicapán, Quetzaltenango,
San Marcos, Quiché and
Huehuetenango. With support from the World Food Programme, supplies of maize,
beans, cooking oil and
tinned meat were distributed in 109 communities in 11
departments, benefiting 17,500 pupils.

Scholarship and grant programme

In 1997, the student welfare programme awarded 8,403 scholarships to girls
studying at the upper secondary school level, including
49 scholarships for
students at the Tzutuhil teacher training school in Sololá, and 380
grants for food to the Santa Lucia
Utatlán school and 183 to the Pedro
Molina teacher training school in Chimaltenango, for a cost of 484,100
quetzales.

Transport subsidy programme

This programme, for primary and secondary school students in the Guatemala
City metropolitan area, helped 77,221 students attend
and remain in school in
1997.

To help prevent students from dropping out of school, given the need for
families, particularly rural families, to earn enough to
improve their living
conditions, the State has implemented a number of programmes, such as:

New unitary school programme

In order to reduce the numbers of students who do not complete their
schooling, the Ministry of Education introduced the new unitary
school
programme, which operates primarily in rural villages and hamlets, with parental
support, and is based on the principles of
active learning, school government,
respect for local culture, promotion of democratic coexistence and recognition
of the parallel
need for subsistence and education.

As a result of this programme, 100 schools were set up in 1995, 927 in 1996
and 1,227 in 1997, with the participation of the Ministry
of Education, the Don
Bosco educational programme, Plan Internacional, the Social Investment Fund
(SIF) and the Foundation for Rural
Development (FUNRURAL). The programme covers
500 schools in coffee-growing areas in eight of the country’s departments
and
is expected to cover 1,200 within the next three years.

Achievements and results of educational policies and programmes

The efforts made by both the public and the private sector, with the support
of international agencies, have produced the following
results over the past six
years:

1. Education for girls exceeded the goals of the USAID basic education
project, becoming a subject of analysis and discussion within
the Guatemalan
education system and an innovative initiative reflected in national policy, the
Peace Agreements and the plans, policies
and objectives of the Government
administrations of the past six years.

2. A ministerial policy for girls’ education, “Policies and
strategies for girls’ education 1993-1998”, was
designed and
published. The decentralized regional scholarship programme for rural indigenous
girls was set up in 1994.

3. International organizations and public and private sector institutions
participated jointly in publicizing the importance of education
for girls and
jointly financed and executed activities in the area of education for girls.

4. The “Let’s educate girls” Association was set up as a
civil non-profit lead agency and national coordinator
to ensure the continuation
of the education for girls initiative.

5. The Human Resources Development and Curriculum Reform Scheme (SIMAC)
became the official executing agency for the girls’
education
programme.

6. The country conducted a novel experiment in the production of
motivational educational materials for girls.

7. Local communities took over responsibility for activities related to
girls’ education.

8. Experts from the Ministry of Education were put in charge of training
teachers in matters related to girls’ education.

Pursuant to the commitments made in the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Government
issued Governmental
Agreement No. 711-93 setting up a specific multisectoral commission for
evaluating school textbooks, with a view
to taking the necessary action to:

1. Ensure that national textbooks and educational materials guarantee equal
functions for men and women, eliminating all discrimination
with regard to the
roles played by each in society.

2. Make curriculum reforms in educational plans, programmes and models in
the various areas and at all the levels of education to
ensure that they do not
contain sexist roles, stereotypes and prejudices and that they include sex
education as part of overall education.

3. Promote action among teaching staff designed to guide educators and make
them aware of the need to demonstrate the dignity and
value of men’s and
women’s roles, providing models of non-sexist social behaviour.

Education reform

With a view to transforming the education system so that it responds to the
population’s present needs, characteristics and
demands, the Ministry of
Education is engaged in an education reform process and has set up the following
bodies to this end:

Joint Commission on Education Reform

The Ministry of Education has promoted the organization and functioning of
the commissions established under the Peace Agreements.
The Joint Commission on
Education Reform was set up in April 1997. Pursuant to the Agreement on Identity
and Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, the Commission is responsible for designing
the education reform and comprises an equal number of Government representatives
and indigenous representatives. It submitted a design for the education reform
on 20 July 1998.

Advisory Commission on Educational Reform

This Commission, established under the Agreement on Social and Economic
Aspects and the Agrarian Situation, was set up in 1997 and
is responsible for
supporting the design and implementation of the education reform.

Secondary and higher education

It is important to note that, in Guatemala, female participation at the
various levels of education is still considerably lower than
male. Sixty per
cent of girls as compared with 50 per cent of boys are not enrolled in
pre-primary education, 10 per cent as compared
with 8 per cent are not enrolled
in primary education and 75 per cent as compared with 61 per cent are not
enrolled in basic and
diversified secondary education. Thus, the higher the
level of schooling, the lower the rate of female enrolment, with even greater
disparities in rural areas.

In higher education, according to data from the University of San Carlos,
the student population is 66.2 per cent male and 33.7 per
cent female. At the
Rafael Landívar, Mariano Gálvez, Del Valle and Francisco
Marroquín private universities,
the female student population is
estimated at 40 per cent. Of these, only a tiny percentage are indigenous
women.

At the Faculty of Juridical and Social Sciences of the University of San
Carlos, the various academic disciplines have included courses
in gender studies
since June 1998.

Access to sports and physical education

The Ministry of Culture and Sports has formulated a culture and sports
policy for 1996-2000 whose basic aim is to raise awareness
of the equal rights
and responsibilities and the dignity of human beings with a view to promoting
public participation in culture
and physical education.

The Ministry of Culture and Sports has eliminated discrimination against
women in different artistic areas and has recognized women’s
contribution
to them. It has also encouraged the sociocultural identification of
Guatemala’s population and, specifically,
the reduction of linguistic and
gender-based discrimination.

The Ministry guarantees women’s access to culture and to public sports
activities and facilities; there are no laws restricting
their participation in
these areas. It should be mentioned that, in all cultural and sports activities
and facilities, multiple opportunities
are available for women to participate.
This is the case in both urban and rural areas and in the Ministry’s
various professional
training schools in the arts, namely:

1. The Rafael Rodríguez National School of Plastic Arts in Guatemala
City, with 84 women.

2. The Carlos Figueroa Júarez National School of Dramatic Arts in
Guatemala City, with 27 women.

3. The Marcella Bonge de Deaavaux National School of Dance and Choreography
in Guatemala City, with 157 women.

4. The Germán Alcántara National Conservatory of Music in
Guatemala City, with 203 women.

11. The Rafael Pereira Elementary Music School in Huehuetenango, with 12
women.

12. The Elías García Elementary Music School in San Juan
Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, with four women.

13. The Rafael Alvarez Ovalle Elementary Music School in San Juan Comalapa,
Chimaltenango, with 14 women.

Access to technical training

The Technical Institute of Training and Productivity (INTECAP) provides
equal opportunities for training and technical assistance
to men and women. One
of its institutional policies for 1998 is the integration of women, disabled
persons and independent workers
in the country’s production process.

To carry out its activities, INTECAP has classified its training programmes
by sector and branch of the economy. In the primary sector,
which comprises
activities involving the production or extraction of animal, vegetable or
mineral products, there are programmes
in agriculture, livestock production,
fisheries, forestry and other agriculture-related activities. In the secondary
sector, which
comprises activities involving the chemical or physical processing
of primary sector products into manufactured or semi-manufactured
products,
there are programmes relating to industry in general, the graphic arts,
textiles, foodstuffs, construction and timber.
In the tertiary sector,
comprising activities related to commerce or the provision of services, there
are programmes in hotel management
and tourism, banking, insurance and commerce,
as well as general programmes.

The Institute also provides training programmes in small business
management, which have benefited both men and women:

In 1987, a total of 18,668 men and 9,392 women were trained, making a total
of 28,060.

In 1988, 21,137 men and 11,850 women were trained, making a total of
32,987.

In 1989, 28,885 men and 16,968 women were trained, making a total of
45,853.

In 1990, 32,959 men and 21,275 women were trained, making a total of
54,234.

In 1991, 37,073 men and 30,300 women were trained, making a total of
67,373.

In 1992, 28,836 men and 22,295 women were trained, making a total of
51,131.

In 1993, 21,171 men and 16,390 women were trained, making a total of
37,561.

In 1994, 24,492 men and 13,277 women were trained, making a total of
37,769.

In 1995, 32,981 men and 16,059 women were trained, making a total of
49,040.

In 1996, 42,608 men and 29,639 women were trained, making a total of
72,247.

In 1997, 57,339 men and 37,430 women were trained, making a total of
94,769.

Most training for women is related to foodstuffs, textiles, the hotel
industry and tourism. Women’s access to other production
activities is
hindered by their customary role in society and by gender stereotyping.

Article 11

Access to work

Guatemala’s labour legislation is highly protective, guaranteeing as
workers’ minimum inalienable rights those set forth
in the Constitution
and in Congressional Decree No. 1441 containing the Labour Code and the Civil
Service Act, which regulate the private and public
sectors respectively.

Labour force participation

According to the study Mujeres y Mundo Laboral en Guatemala, Las Mentes y
Manos Invisibles sponsored by the International Labour Organization (ILO),
Guatemala’s labour force is very poorly educated. Of the female
economically
active population, 40.24 per cent never attended school and 19 per
cent completed only primary education.

Nationwide studies conducted by Childhope in 1991 and 1992 show that girls
enter the labour force between the ages of 10 and 14 years,
meaning that many
have little schooling or have dropped out. As a result, they are segregated into
the areas of least socio-economic
importance, such as commerce and services.

The Human Development Report 1996 indicated that, of a total
economically active population (EAP) of 3,112,455, 2,511,737 (80.7 per cent)
were men and a mere 600,718
(19.3 per cent) were women. The non-EAP of 4,026,203
consisted of 2,858,531 women and 1,167,672 men.

According to the latest studies, the female participation rate declined from
around 24 per cent in 1989 to around 20 per cent in
1994 because of slow
economic growth. At the same time, part of the economically active female
population joined the informal sector,
increasing the invisible underemployment
rate. According to a 1992 study by the Regional Employment Programme for Latin
America and
the Caribbean (PREALC), that rate rose from 43.6 per cent in 1986 to
56.4 per cent in 1989.

According to Mujeres y Mundo Laboral en Guatemala, the unemployment
rate is 3.2 per cent for women and 2 per cent for men. The Ministry of Labour
statistics report an unemployment
rate of 1.7 per cent for women and 2 per cent
for men.

As a result of the internal armed conflict (1966-1996), many women became
heads of household. According to Nineth Montenegro of the
Congressional
Committee on Women, Children and the Family, 43 per cent of Guatemalan women are
heads of household and they contribute
almost 40 per cent of family income.

The distribution of the economically active population among economic
sectors is as follows: agriculture, 6.4 per cent women and
93.5 per cent men;
manufacturing, 19.9 per cent women and 80.1 per cent men; commerce, 40.3 per
cent women and 59.6 per cent men;
and services, 79.8 per cent women and 20.1 per
cent men.

Equal conditions in the workplace

Based on article 4 of the Constitution, which embodies the principle of
equality of men and women, and article 102 (a), which recognizes freedom of
choice of employment
on economic terms that meet the basic needs of the worker
and his/her family, the right of women to choose the occupation they want
is
being recognized.

Moreover, the Labour Code establishes that only by decision of a competent
authority, based on the law and for reasons of public
order, can a
person’s right to work be restricted. Accordingly, by signing a contract
of employment, which is what binds them
in a labour relationship, employer and
worker acquire rights and obligations, including the obligation to provide the
same employment
conditions for men and women and a prohibition against
fundamentally or permanently altering any of those conditions, for instance:
the
execution of the work, the way in which it is done, the time required to do it,
the place in which it is done, and the compensation
which the employer is
required to pay the worker by virtue of the labour relationship (wage, bonuses,
Christmas bonus, paid holidays).

According to Mujeres y Mundo Laboral en Guatemala, the obstacles to
women’s access to work and to equal employment conditions derive from
three factors:

1. Gender differentiation, in which men perform some activities and women
perform others.

2. Class differentiation, in which members of different classes engage in
different occupations.

3. Ethnic differentiation, in which the ethnic groups living in conditions
of subordination in Guatemalan society tend also to form
labour
“ghettos”.

In an effort to eliminate employment discrimination against women, the
Ministry of Labour and Social Security adopted Ministerial
Agreement No. 11-94
of 3 March 1994 creating a Section for the Advancement and Training of Working
Women within the Department of
Social Security, one of whose functions is to
ensure respect for the rights of women workers in coordination with the National
Office
for Women’s Affairs (ONAM).

The aims of the Section, which is assisted by the Labour Inspectorate,
include the following:

2. Ensure that women enjoy equitable conditions in the workplace, are free
to choose their employment and are protected against unemployment.

3. Support the actions of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security in
implementing the provisions of the Peace Agreements relating
to working
women.

4. Make employers aware of women’s labour rights.

5. Promote the creation of childcare arrangements in women’s
workplaces.

6. Plan and develop activities for working women in special situations, such
as women heads of household, immigrant women, etc.

7. Help women to exercise their labour and citizenship rights.

8. Publicize women’s labour rights through the mass media.

The Section provides nationwide coverage through the regional offices of the
Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Since its creation,
it has conducted a
total of 48 training sessions and 12 seminars per year and provided legal
assistance to a total of 1,100 working
women.

The Department of Social Security in the Ministry of Labour and Social
Security also has a Social Assistance for Women Workers Section,
which plans,
executes and evaluates projects that promote income-generation and provides
training, advice and credit assistance to
women workers living in poverty or
extreme poverty in rural communities of the country’s interior or in
marginal areas of the
capital city. Its objectives include the following:

1. Provide the poorest and most vulnerable population groups with training
opportunities, credit and assistance in community organization
and
self-management, in order to improve their standard of living and help
consolidate peace and democracy.

2. Create and expand production units.

3. Reduce the rates of poverty and extreme poverty.

4. Reduce the unemployment rate and promote self-employment.

5. Provide training and advancement for women in the informal sector of the
economy.

6. Promote and encourage community organizations.

The Section’s programmes include the “Trickle Up” grant
programme, the solidarity fund microcredit programme, and
training and
coordination.

The areas assisted are the departments of Quiché, Alta and Baja
Verapaz, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán, Chimaltenango,
Sacatepéquez
and Guatemala. The production activities promoted are: shops selling articles
for everyday use, animal raising,
crop growing, sale of prepared food, fruit and
vegetables, production and marketing of traditional textiles, sale of clothing
and
shoes, production of piñatas and sale of perfumes and cosmetics.

In August 1991, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security signed an
agreement with ILO and the Government of Spain on the execution
of a Central
American project to support labour integration and income-generating activities
for disabled persons. By Ministerial
Agreement No. 12-94 of 3 May 1994, a
Section for Disabled Workers was created to facilitate the full rehabilitation
of disabled persons
through work and promote coordination among entities and
associations dealing with disabled persons and employment. In 1993, 106
disabled
persons were registered, of whom 26 were women aged between 28 and 53 years and
80 were men aged between 21 and 54.

In 1992, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security created a Unit for Child
Workers to ensure the protection of child workers under
the current legal
framework governing child and juvenile labour. Its work is reflected in the new
Code for Children and Adolescents,
adopted in October 1996.

The National Office for Women’s Affairs in the Ministry of Labour and
Social Security has submitted draft amendments designed
to promote women’s
participation in the country’s development process. These include
amendments to the Labour Code, the
State Pensioners Act, the Act organizing the
Guatemalan Social Security Institute, the Civil Code, the Elections and
Political Parties
Act, the Health Code and the Development Councils Act.

Although the Constitution and the Labour Code recognize the principle of
equal employment conditions, there are three types of work, regulated in
chapters
2, 3 and 4 of title IV of the Labour Code, in which women’s
labour rights are violated, namely, agricultural work, domestic
work and
home-based work.

Domestic work

Domestic work is referred to as domestic service and is performed in private
homes, mainly by poor women with little or no schooling.
Legal working hours are
often exceeded and social benefits are rarely provided.

According to the Tenth Population Census, 1994, 79.8 per cent of women are
engaged in the provision of community, social or personal
services, of whom 40.2
per cent work in the wholesale or retail trade.

Guatemalan labour law regulates domestic work by providing a minimum level
of protection, including:

1. The right to receive a wage for the work performed, in addition to
receiving room and board.

2. The employer’s obligation to pay the employee a Christmas bonus
equal to 100 per cent of his or her monthly wage in December
of each year, 50
per cent of which may be paid in the first half of December and the remaining 50
per cent in the first half of January.

3. Pursuant to Congressional Decree No. 42-92, public and private sector
workers are entitled to receive an annual bonus equal to
100 per cent of their
monthly wage in the first half of July of each year.

4. Women domestic workers are entitled to the days off and one day off a
week stipulated in the Labour Code.

5. In case of illness, the Labour Code stipulates the following in respect
of domestic workers:

(a) If the employer or persons living in the home where the worker is
employed has a contagious or infectious illness, the worker
is entitled to
consider his or her contract terminated.

(b) If the worker has a minor illness which renders him or her unfit for
work during a week or less, the employer must obtain medical
care and medicine
for him or her. If the illness is not minor and the worker is rendered unfit for
work for more than a week, the
employer is entitled to terminate the contract
unless he avails himself of the provisions of article 67 of the Labour Code.

(c) If the worker contracted the illness directly from the employer of from
the persons living in the home, the worker is entitled
to full payment of his or
her wages until he or she is completely recovered and to payment of the costs
incurred as a result of the
illness.

(d) In any case of illness requiring hospitalization or isolation, the
employer must arrange for the domestic worker to be accommodated
in the nearest
hospital or charitable institution and pay the reasonable costs of
transportation and other emergency care, immediately
informing the
worker’s next of kin.

(e) If the domestic worker dies in the employer’s home as a result of
the illness, the employer must pay the reasonable costs
of burial. If the worker
is eligible for benefits from the Guatemalan Social Security Institute, he or
she will be subject to the
rules and regulations of the Institute relating to
sickness benefits.

In response to the problems faced by women in this area, there are five
non-governmental organizations in Guatemala which provide
training to women
domestic workers to help develop their potential and self-esteem: the Centro de
Apoyo para la Trabajadora de Casa
Particular (CENTRACAP), Casa San Benito, Casa
Siervas de San José, Conrado de la Cruz and María Auxiliadora.

CENTRACAP is a private, non-profit, development organization which was
founded in March 1990 with the aim of helping to improve the
living conditions
of Guatemalan women. Its functions include:

1. Making women domestic workers value themselves and helping them fight to
ensure that other people respect them as women and workers.

2. Raising the awareness of women domestic workers so that they can obtain
higher earnings.

3. Providing an organized setting in which women domestic workers can
discuss the causes of their problems.

4. Educating and raising the awareness of women domestic workers so that
they can improve their employment opportunities and their
earnings.

CENTRACAP is based in Guatemala City. Its structures are: a 200-delegate
general assembly; a board of directors made up of eight
women (chairperson,
vice-chairperson, secretary, treasurer and four members) responsible for running
the Centre and representing
its members; an executive committee made up of four
women who are responsible for the overall administration and coordination of
the
Centre; and a group of women who provide technical support for the
Centre’s work. The Centre drafted a bill regulating
domestic employment
(employment in private homes) whereby such employment would be subject to the
same legislation as employment
in industry and the formal commercial sector and
domestic workers would have access to social security and other benefits.

Agricultural work

Labour legislation does not specifically regulate women’s agricultural
work. Such work is governed by title IV of the Labour
Code, on jobs subject to
special regulations because of their seasonal nature, and women and children are
usually treated as helpers
of the male agricultural worker, who is paid a wage
while the woman’s productive activity remains invisible.

According to a 1993 study by Ana Silvia Monzón of ONAM reviewing
State policies with regard to women and work, for the 60
per cent of women who
live in rural areas, agriculture is the activity in which their employment is
most underreported.

Women’s agricultural work involves food crops such as corn, beans and
other vegetables which are grown for sale on a small
scale and traditional crops
such as coffee, sugar and bananas which are grown on plantations in the
south-east of the country and
employ large numbers of indigenous women seasonal
migrants from the western altiplano and ladina women.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security, in fulfilment of ILO Conventions
No. 88 concerning the Organization of the Employment
Service, No. 97 concerning
Migration for Employment, No. 111 concerning Discrimination in respect of
Employment and Occupation and
No. 122 concerning Employment Policy, as well as
the provisions of the Constitution and the Labour Code, has implemented the
following programmes:

1. Programme for the protection of the labour rights of Guatemalan seasonal
migrant agricultural workers who migrate to work on farms
and plantations in
southern Chiapas, Mexico. This programme advises workers on their labour rights
and obligations and on their right
to go to Guatemalan consulates in Mexico for
help if their rights are violated.

2. Training programme for seasonal migrant agricultural workers, labour
recruiters and contractors, and staff of the Ministry of
Labour and Social
Security working in the border area who deal with immigrant workers and are
responsible for the registration, monitoring
and oversight of local employment
offices in Guatemala and Mexico.

Following the binational meeting on seasonal agricultural workers who
migrate between Mexico and Guatemala, the format of the identity
document which
the Ministry had proposed for Guatemalan seasonal agricultural workers was
finalized.

Radio spots were produced in the four main Maya languages, informing workers
about their labour rights and about the legal advice
provided by the regional
employment offices that keep record of such workers.

Employment policy

Pursuant to the Governmental Agreement of 23 December 1957 on the
strengthening of the public employment service, flexible procedures
have been
introduced to facilitate the provision of public recruitment and placement
services. A programme was set up to publicize
the services provided by the
National Employment Department, involving the distribution of 10,000 leaflets to
employers and workers.
In 1997, 1,971 people were registered and the number of
job vacancies rose by 949, a 36 per cent increase over 1995. The number of
firms
using the job placement service to hire workers was 570, 15 per cent more than
in 1995. A total of 2,007 people were referred
to workplaces, of whom 676 were
hired, a 24 per cent increase over 1995.

There are also non-governmental women’s organizations in Guatemala
whose functions include teaching women about their labour
rights. Since
Guatemala is a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multilingual country, the
Ministry of Labour and Social Security and
the “Mujer Vamos
Adelante” association, with USAID support, executed a project entitled
“Dissemination and teaching
of labour rights and obligations in Maya
languages”.

Access to social security

The Constitution guarantees the right to social security. The Guatemalan
Social Security Institute (IGSS) is the lead agency for social security,
but its
regulations apply to workers in the formal sector only and for women with regard
to maternity protection.

When the Institute was set up, it provided medical, hospital and industrial
injury coverage. In 1971, it introduced disability, old-age
and survivors’
benefits.

According to Mujeres y Mundo Laboral en Guatemala, in 1991 an
estimated 39 per cent of the economically active population or, if one includes
their dependents, around 23 per cent
of the total population of Guatemala were
protected against risks in receiving their regular incomes; of these, 17 per
cent were
covered by IGSS.

The Act organizing the Guatemalan Social Security Institute does not grant
the same benefits to male and female members, in that
the spouse or partner of a
female member receives no benefits even though women pay the same percentage of
their wages as men to
the social security scheme.

One improvement made by Congressional Decree No. 99-97 was the amendment of
Congressional Decree No. 63-88 containing the State Pensioners
Act. Article 25
of Decree No. 99-97 establishes that in calculating the amount of the retirement
pension, periods of maternity leave
will no longer be treated as breaks in
contributory service, even if the woman does not pay contributions during such
leave, but
rather as time worked, thereby expanding the protection of maternity
as a social function.

The ONAM Women and Legal Reforms project submitted to the Congress of the
Republic a set of draft amendments to Congressional Decree
No. 195 containing
the Social Security Act. The purpose of the amendments, which are currently
being studied, is to eliminate the
provisions of the current Social Security Act
that discriminate against women.

Protection of maternity

Title IV, chapter two, of the Guatemalan Labour Code regulates work subject
to special regimes. This includes work done by women,
since they are treated as
a vulnerable population group. With regard to maternity protection, articles 151
to 155 of the Labour Code
establish the following minimum rights for women
workers:

Article 151 (c) prohibits the dismissal of a woman worker who is pregnant or
nursing, stipulating that she may be removed from her
job only with good cause
based on a serious breach of her contractual obligations, in accordance with
article 177 of the Code. In
that case, before he can dismiss the woman, the
employer must apply to the labour courts and prove the contractual breach, and
the
dismissal can take effect only after the court has given its express
authorization in writing. If the employer fails to follow this
procedure, the
woman can go to court to exercise her right to reinstatement in the same job and
is entitled to payment of the wages
which she would have earned had she not been
dismissed.

The Labour Code also gives working mothers the right to 84 days’
prenatal and post-natal leave in accordance with ILO Convention
No. 103, which
Guatemala has ratified.

Thus, article 152 (as amended by article 12 of Congressional Decree No.
6492) stipulates that a working mother is entitled to 30
days’ prenatal
and 54 days’ post-natal leave with full pay. Any days of prenatal leave
that she is unable to take before
the birth must be added to her post-natal
leave, so that she effectively enjoys 84 days’ leave during this
period.

Article 153 (as amended by article 13 of Congressional Decree No. 64-92)
stipulates that during the breastfeeding period a woman
worker may take two
30minute breaks a day from her work in order to nurse her child. She may combine
the two 30-minute breaks to
which she is entitled and come to work an hour after
the start of the working day, or leave an hour before it ends, in order to nurse
her child. Her employer must pay her for the hour in question and his failure to
do so will incur a penalty.

The breastfeeding period must be calculated from the day on which the woman
returns to work and lasts for 10 months, unless it has
to be extended on medical
grounds.

The above articles show that labour law treats maternity leave and
breastfeeding breaks as an individual, partial suspension of work
under which
the woman worker ceases to provide her services and the employer remains
obligated to pay her the corresponding wage.
This protects stability of
employment in job contracts.

Employers are also required to provide a place for mothers to nurse their
children during the working day. Such places must be staffed
by appropriate
child-care workers.

To enforce labour regulations, title VIII, chapter two, of the Labour Code
as contained in Congressional Decree No. 1441 imposes
sanctions for
non-compliance with the minimum established norms. These norms include maternity
protection measures, and the relevant
provisions are reproduced below.

Article 272 stipulates that, unless special provision is made otherwise or
the nature of the act or omission is such that the ordinary
courts may impose
different penalties, all breaches of employment or social security provisions
shall be punishable as follows:

“(a) Any breach of a minimum norm shall give rise to the imposition
of a fine of between 1,500 and 5,000 quetzales.”

Through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, in coordination with the
Commission on Breastfeeding, the Ministry of Health
and Social Welfare, the
Guatemalan Social Security Institute and other governmental and private bodies,
Guatemala has taken action
to help working women care for their children,
including setting up workplace child-care centres and breastfeeding support
centres,
providing nutrition and child-care counselling for mothers and
motivating the business sector to help enforce the corresponding measures.

The Labour Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, as
the body responsible for the enforcement of labour rights,
has handled cases of
women dismissed during pregnancy or the breastfeeding period and has brought
proceedings before the labour courts
to punish employers for such breaches of
labour norms. It has also strengthened the inspection system by decentralizing
the Ministry’s
functions to 22 newly created departmental labour
inspectorates. Local offices have been set up in the border area, in
Tecún
Umán and El Carmen in the department of San Marcos, to
assist, monitor, register and oversee Guatemalan seasonal agricultural
workers
who migrate to southern Chiapas in Mexico.

In 1981, pursuant to the recommendations of the Sixth Inter-American
Conference of Ministers of Labour held in Lima, Peru, in 1978,
the National
Office for Women’s Affairs (ONAM) was set up within the Ministry of Labour
and Social Security as the lead agency
for the formulation of policies relating
to women. Ten departmental offices are now in operation, in Huehuetenango,
Quiché,
Quetzaltenango, Sololá, San Marcos, Totonicapán,
Chimaltenango, Baja and Alta Verapaz and Petén. The fact that
ONAM is
made up of governmental and non-governmental representatives enables it to raise
public awareness of the importance of women’s
participation in different
spheres of Guatemalan society.

The Office’s functions include teaching and disseminating
women’s rights and conducting research into the situation of
Guatemalan
women. Its Women and Legal Reforms project has disseminated the Act on the
Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Domestic
Violence, through
audio-cassettes in the four main Maya languages and Spanish distributed as a
teaching aid for training programmes
on women’s human rights.

On 7 and 28 October 1998, respectively, the plenary Congress of the Republic
approved in first and second reading the bill for the
advancement and all-round
development of women, which builds on the commitments made in the Beijing
Platform for Action, at the International
Conference on Population and
Development, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and in
the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment
and Eradication of Violence against Women and on the legislative obligations
in
favour of women deriving from the Peace Agreements. The bill also provides for
valuing women’s work equally with men’s
and giving visibility to
women’s work in agriculture.

Article 12

Access to health care

The lack of comprehensive health care for Guatemalan women affects their
individual and social development. In health, as in other
areas of the
development process, Guatemalan women and girls have been confronted with an
organizational structure and philosophy
whose perception and image of women is
based on the idea that their sole function is reproduction and that their needs
are therefore
limited to maternal and child health and gynaecological and
obstetric services. This approach completely ignores a series of needs
and risks
that they confront daily in their reproductive and non-reproductive lives.

The above helps to explain the state of health of Guatemalan women and
girls, who suffer from high rates of protein-calorie malnutrition
and vitamin A,
iodine and iron deficiency. In the case of pregnant women, this puts them at
high risk for giving birth to small,
low-birth-weight babies.

Studies made by UNICEF in Guatemala indicate that, where health is
concerned, there is a marked difference between girls and boys
in urban and
rural areas, and also if we compare the ladino and indigenous
populations, accounting for 25.7 per cent of the urban population and 36 per
cent of the rural population.

Moreover, the philosophy underlying Guatemala’s health system in the
past favoured treatment over education and prevention,
and this had an obvious
impact on the organization, distribution, structuring and concentration of
health budgets in relation to
social indicators of health.

The Government’s programme for 1996-2000 outlines a new model of
decentralized health care under which activities and decision-making
are
transferred to local structures and people are encouraged to look after their
health, so that health care coverage can be increasingly
targeted to vulnerable
groups (women and children) and greater emphasis can be placed on preventive
health care and health education.

The Guatemalan Social Security Institute is also in the process of expanding
its coverage to include not only treatment but also
preventive activities.

With regard to the planning of a national policy for human development,
children and youth, the main goal is to improve health conditions
with emphasis
on women and children, recognizing the existence of malnutrition among pregnant
women.

Administrative policies and measures for access to health care

In 1989, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare set up the Women,
Health and Development programme, which carries out specific
activities for
women and trains health-care staff in a gender and health perspective. This
process has made it possible to identify
gender discrimination in the provision
of health-care services and to raise awareness of the need to avoid it. The
programme has
also promoted the study of the main causes of disease; research
into domestic violence and its relationship with health; and the
planning of
activities that focus on specific groups who suffer other kinds of
discrimination, such as indigenous women, women prostitutes
and rural women.

Through the Women, Health and Development programme, the Ministry of Public
Health and Social Welfare is currently implementing a
number of projects,
namely:

Indigenous women’s project

This project covers the municipalities where Quiché and
Kachiq’el groups live, in the health areas of the departments
of
Chimaltenango, Sacatepéquez and Baja Verapaz. It began by focusing on the
health and living conditions of indigenous women
and on issues of Western and
traditional medicine and subsequently succeeded in mobilizing eight councils of
indigenous women within
their villages to make them aware of their health, their
health needs and gender issues.

The indigenous women thus mobilized have raised awareness among other groups
of women and men in their communities. The formation
of these groups has been
encouraged by the institutional staff of local health centres or health posts by
identifying women leaders
or women who have worked in the health area.

The councils comprise between 15 and 20 bilingual women, some of whom can
read and write, who carry out health education activities
through literacy
teaching and by travelling to other locations such as villages, hamlets and
places where the population is scattered.
They hold meetings at which health
education talks are given, focusing on the community’s needs and how to
solve them. This
process also raises awareness of the relationship between
gender and health in indigenous communities and is designed to increase
indigenous women’s self-esteem and their attention to their own
health.

The target population directly involved in the outcomes and execution of
project activities comprises: indigenous women health leaders
(health outreach
workers, midwives, educators), women community leaders identified by
women’s groups, local health authorities,
health service staff and other
local authorities (the Church, schools, municipal leaders).

The recipient population was defined as people who may or may not be
directly involved in the execution of project activities but
who benefit from
them.

The project’s achievements include the following:

1. Partial institutionalization of the project through a strong process of
dissemination and training.

2. Creation of forums in the provinces through the formation of local groups
of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare.

3. Holding of workshops with indigenous women to develop a national
indigenous women’s project.

4. Dissemination of development policies for women.

5. Formation of an inter-programme group to work on the changeover to a
gender perspective in health programmes.

6. Support for national priorities through the Indigenous Women’s
Project.

7. Production of a methodology and a handbook for training staff in
sex/gender theory.

8. Second one-week course on sex/gender and health for institutional
staff.

9. Production of community handbooks for sex/gender training.

10. Formation of a coordinating board of women from different institutions
to evaluate the situation of women.

11. Training of groups of facilitators in gender and health.

12. Systematization of training in gender and health, gender and violence,
self-esteem, health self-help, gender-analysis methodology
and planning for
gender with institutional extension workers and health area representatives.

13. Elimination of sexist stereotypes from materials used for training and
research purposes in health programmes.

14. Launching of Pap test days and training days on medicinal plants.

15. Production of radio programmes by indigenous women to promote
women’s health, and design of the health self-help handbook.

17. Production of the plant-treatment handbook. Making the councils
self-sustaining by giving them legal personality.

18. Negotiation by municipalities of the implementation of the Indigenous
Women’s Project and promotion of reproductive health,
as part of the
strengthening of local organizations with the participation of men and
women.

19. Formation of an inter-programme group to mainstream a gender perspective
at the operational level.

Domestic violence project

In the period from 1995 to 1998, this project was consolidated in the health
area of the municipality of Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa
in the department
of Escuintla. In its first phase, it applied methodologies and materials with a
gender content and dealt with domestic
violence using the model of women’s
comprehensive health care.

In 1997, the health areas of the departments of Zacapa and Guatemala north
were incorporated in the project. This phase of the project
involves techniques
for dealing with battered women who come into contact with the health services,
where they receive physical and
psychological care, and the organization of
women’s self-help groups at the community level. In the health care area,
staff
are trained in the technique of responsible listening to ensure that
battered women’s cases are handled in accordance with
technical
guidelines.

A standard form for reporting cases of domestic violence was designed, as
well as a form for referrals to other bodies dealing with
such cases. In
designing the standard form and thereby seeking to end the cycle of violence
against battered women, coordination
was established with, inter alia, the
Office of the Human Rights Procurator through the Office for the Defence of
Women’s Human
Rights, the Congressional Committee on Women, Children and
the Family, the National Statistical Institute, the Judicial Statistics
Department, the University of San Carlos and the Public Prosecutor’s
Office. The Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare
also managed to
incorporate the recording of intentional and unintentional injuries in reports
on cases of domestic violence.

The project’s achievements are the following:

1. Partial institutionalization of the project through a process of
dissemination and training.

2. Research on domestic violence involving battered women who go to the
health services, and increased visibility of reports on cases
of domestic
violence.

3. Formation of a coordinating board of women from different institutions to
evaluate women’s human rights situation.

4. Design and application of the protocol for the care of battered women at
the normative and operational levels.

5. Formation of a local Gender, Health and Violence network made up of 30
midwives in the community of Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa,
Escuintla.

6. Training of 75 people in masculinity and femininity and design of the
research project “Critical route followed by persons
affected by
violence”.

7. Updating of the legal studies on domestic violence made in the period
1990-1994 and mainstreaming of a gender approach in the
planning process in
technical programmes.

8. Dissemination of the Act on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of
Domestic Violence.

9. Technical support for women community leaders and consolidation of the
care that midwives provide to battered women with institutional
support.

The reform of the health sector has made it possible to give priority to
comprehensive health care for women, implementing methodologies
that guarantee
quality care with equity. The development of comprehensive health self-help
through the women’s councils has
resulted in safe motherhood, thereby
helping to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality rates.

Despite the actions carried out in communities by these two projects, there
are constraints on their coverage, for instance, the
fact that the pace of
awareness-raising on women, gender and health and men, masculinity and health
has been slow and there are no
reliable statistics which reflect the overall
well-being of Guatemalan women.

Reproductive health

Guatemalan women have numerous children partly because mothers are poorly
educated and do not know about sex education and family
planning programmes and
methods and partly because there are limits on women’s autonomy to make
decisions about their quality
of life and the number of children they want.
Moreover, masculinity is measured socially by the number of children a man
fathers.
In rural areas, children are seen as a workforce for the parents and as
a potential source of income.

The National Survey of Maternal and Child Health carried out in 1995 by the
National Statistical Institute and covering the period
1993-1994 shows that even
though women’s fertility has declined, it remains the highest in Latin
America, with an average rate
of 5.1 children per mother: 3.8 in urban areas and
6.2 per cent in rural areas. Indigenous women account for 60 per cent of women
of childbearing age and 70 per cent of births.

Both the impact of ideology on the community and the influence of lack of
formal and informal education on the couple are obvious,
as are the consequences
of all this for the social development process in general.

With regard to prenatal and childbirth care, recent national statistics
indicate that 55 per cent of children born in the past seven
years (1990-1997)
were protected against tetanus by administering tetanus toxoid to mothers during
pregnancy. Anti-tetanus injections
were given to mothers under the age of 35,
rural mothers, mothers in the north-east and central regions, mothers who have
completed
primary education, mothers giving birth for the fourth time and
ladina mothers.

Currently, 53 per cent of mothers received professional medical care (from a
doctor or nurse) during pregnancy. This figure drops
to under 40 per cent of
pregnancies for women living in the north-west region; women in the departments
of Chimaltenango, San Marcos
and Huehuetenango; indigenous women; and women with
no education. However, a large percentage of women in these groups receive
prenatal
care from midwives. Doctors assist in 31 per cent of births to
indigenous women and only 38 per cent of births to ladina women.

The 1995 National Survey of Maternal and Child Health shows that the
mortality rates of Guatemalan women, especially indigenous women,
again place
them in a socially disadvantaged position and make them the object of cultural
preconceptions. This is obviously influenced
by factors such as women’s
lack of or limited schooling, reflected in the fact that 28 per cent of women of
childbearing age
have no education, 47 per cent have completed primary
education, 21 per cent have completed secondary education and only 3.1 per
cent
have completed university education.

To combat the high rates of maternal mortality, a national plan for the
reduction of maternal mortality is being carried out with
UNFPA support in 20
municipalities, under which the quality of care is being improved, community
participation is being promoted
and the training of health personnel is being
upgraded. Through this plan, community health care alternatives have been
developed,
such as the training of traditional and institutional birth
attendants and the establishment of district maternity centres combining
nutrition, breastfeeding and accommodation components (see attached table on
maternity care and the Ministry’s infrastructure).

Article 13

Access to social benefits

Right to family benefits

The Guatemalan social security scheme is a single, compulsory nationwide
scheme based on the latest and broadest principles governing
this area. Its aim
is to provide protection to the entire population of the country; it obtains its
funds from earnings-related contributions
and its benefits are distributed to
each contributor or his economically dependent family members. The quantity and
quality of these
benefits are compatible with what the public interest and
social stability require them to be.

The social services provided to workers in Guatemala are regulated by the
Labour Code, the Act organizing the Guatemalan Social Security
Institute and its
implementing regulations and the State Pensioners Act. Those services are
provided to the formal sector as follows:

Programmes of the Guatemalan Social Security Institute

Social security programmes:

– Sickness and maternity

This programme covers maternity and ordinary illness and provides monetary
benefits and medical care; it is funded by tripartite
contributions, comprising
2 per cent of the worker’s wages, 4 per cent from the employer and 2 per
cent from the Government.

To be entitled to these benefits, workers must have paid at least three
months of contributions in the six months preceding their
illness and have a
permanent job.

Under the sickness benefit programme, workers receive the equivalent of two
thirds of their average earnings, up to a maximum of
2,400 quetzales a month.
Under the maternity benefit programme, working mothers receive the equivalent of
their full earnings, payable
for 30 days before and 54 days after childbirth.
The number of cases handled in 1996 was as follows: registration of new members,
15,720 (6.2 per cent), beneficiaries, 23,505 (5.3 per cent), maternity visits:
first visits, 38,572 (2.4 per cent), follow-up visits,
140,911 (1.9 per cent),
emergencies, 51,381 (9.2 per cent).

The medical benefits granted to members comprise medical care provided
directly by the Institute’s services, including general
and specialized
care, surgery, maternity care, hospitalization, medicines, laboratory services,
prostheses, transport and physical
and occupational therapy, and treatment
abroad, which may be authorized up to a maximum of US$ 15,000.

– Medical benefits for dependants

The Institute provides the same maternity benefits to the wife or partner of
a member as to a woman member, as well as sickness and
accident benefits. The
natural children of members receive a food benefit consisting of milk and other
nutritional products, as well
as paediatric care during the first five years of
life and medical care up to the age of 15 for a congenital disease or deformity.
In 1996, the Institute supplemented these benefits by distributing 838 basic
layettes, 10,598 pounds of milk and 229,307 pounds of
Incaparina.

– Old-age, disability and survivors’ benefits

This programme covers all wage-earners, agricultural workers and public
sector employees. Its funds come from tripartite contributions,
with workers
contributing 1.5 per cent of their earnings, employers contributing 3 per cent
of the payroll and the Government contributing
25 per cent, as well as its
employer’s contribution. The maximum income for benefit purposes is 4,000
quetzales a month.

To qualify for an old-age pension, the covered person must fulfil certain
requirements:

1. Have reached 60 years of age.

2. Have contributed to the scheme for at least 180 months.

3. Have retired from his/her most recent employment.

The pension benefit received is equivalent to 50 per cent of the average
monthly income for the last five years of contributory service,
increased by 0.5
per cent of such income for every six months of contributory service in excess
of 120 months.

To qualify for a disability pension, the covered person must:

1. Have two-thirds earnings capacity (one half to two thirds for partial
incapacity).

2. Have contributed to the scheme for 36 months out of the past six
years.

3. Be under 60 years of age.

The benefit is equivalent to 50 per cent of the average monthly income for
the last three years of contributory service, increased
by 0.5 per cent of such
income for every six months of contributory service in excess of 120 months.

If the covered person dies having met the contributory requirements for
obtaining a disability or old-age pension, or was already
receiving such a
pension, eligibility is conditional on having paid contributions for the last 36
months of the past six years. The
benefit is equivalent to 50 per cent of the
disability pension paid or payable to the covered person.

The supplementary payments for dependants are: 10 per cent of the pension
for a wife or a disabled husband and 10 per cent for each
child under the age of
18 or for a disabled child. Orphans are entitled to 25 per cent of the covered
person’s pension or,
if they are aged under 18 and have lost both parents,
50 per cent.

The Labour Code stipulates that if a worker was not covered by the Institute
at the time of his or her death or if the worker’s
economic dependants are
not entitled to his or her benefits, the employer must pay one month’s
wages for each year of service
provided by the worker.

– Social benefits for State employees

Decree No. 63-88 containing the State Pensioners Act, as amended by
Congressional Decree No. 40-93, establishes social benefits for
employees and
their families, including the following:

– Survivors’ benefit

The surviving spouse of a State employee, the minor children and, in the
absence of the latter, such children as are legally declared
to be under his or
her guardianship are entitled to a special pension equivalent to 100 per cent of
the amount of the retirement
pension to which the employee would have been
entitled, provided that the employee has 10 years of continuous service and has
contributed
to such pension. If the employee has less than 10 years’
service, the payment is prorated.

– Retirement benefit

State employees are also entitled to a retirement pension, which is
calculated on the basis of the average remuneration paid during
the
employee’s last five years of service.

– Orphans’ benefit

This benefit is designed to assist specific descendants of a State employee
who dies for any reason. Minor children, disabled children
and children who can
demonstrate that they are students are eligible for this benefit up to the age
of 21. The benefit is equivalent
to 100 per cent of the retirement pension to
which the employee would have been entitled.

– Widow’s/widower’s pension

This pension is payable to the surviving spouse or judicially recognized
partner and is equivalent to 100 per cent of the retirement
pension to which the
deceased employee would have been entitled.

– Survivors’ insurance

On 6 June 1990, Governmental Agreement No. 636-90 set up the National
Association to Assist the Survivors of Public and Former Public
Employees
(ANAPEP), which on the death of a State employee pays the employee’s
designated beneficiaries insurance amounting
to 20,000 quetzales.

– Access to credit

Guatemala’s banking and financial legislation does not distinguish
between the sexes in granting loans and mortgages. The banking
system treats
everyone, male and female, as potential borrowers, meaning that they must fulfil
certain requirements in order to obtain
a loan. Unfortunately, the banking
system keeps statistics only on the total loans granted; there are no
gender-disaggregated statistics.

Currently, there are governmental and non-governmental organizations in
Guatemala which, in promoting programmes and projects to
combat poverty, have
taken action to improve the status of women, as described in this report in
relation to articles 2, 3 and 14
of the Convention.

Projects carried out by non-governmental organizations to integrate women in
production include the following:

Financial Advisory Foundation for Development and Social Service
Institutions (FAFIDES)

FAFIDES was founded in 1986 by members of the Guatemala City Rotary Clubs in
response to the need to increase the service coverage
of the private development
agencies working to solve the problems of the most vulnerable sectors of
society. Initially, it provided
technical assistance and financial management
for the execution of social projects in the areas of health, education, drinking
water
supply, institution-building and handicrafts development.

In 1989, it launched a programme of credit assistance to women’s
groups in rural areas known as “community banks”,
benefiting women
in different parts of the country. The community banks are groups of 20 to 30
women who generally have no access
to conventional sources of credit and want to
better themselves; they organize in order to receive funding, training and
technical
assistance and engage in production activities that help generate
income and savings for themselves and their families.

All FAFIDES beneficiaries are women and 95 per cent of them are of
indigenous origin. They range in age from 18 to 65, only 30 per
cent of them are
fluent in Spanish, their educational level is low, many of them are illiterate
and it is difficult for them to obtain
access to the services of government
programmes such as education and housing.

The programmes cover single mothers, widows and wives who in one way or
another contribute all or part of their household’s
economic support.
Their average monthly income is under 1,000 quetzales while their annual sales
vary between 36,000 and 50,000 quetzales.

FAFIDES is currently assisting 162 community banks in eight departments,
supporting 3,863 women members. It is estimated that it
has generated 15,452
jobs and that it has a total of 23,178 indirect beneficiaries among
members’ families. In 1995, it granted
6,000 quetzales; in 1996, 15,470
quetzales; in 1997, 23,100 quetzales; and in 1998, 26,963 quetzales. It should
be noted that women’s
late payment rate on the credits granted is 0 per
cent.

Maya Centre for Community Development (CEMADEC)

The Centre was set up in 1993 at the initiative of a group of individuals
representing community organizations, such as farmers’
associations,
cooperatives, women’s groups and youth groups, as a means of initiating
intercommunal coordination, exchanges
and cooperation.

The Centre is a non-governmental, non-profit service organization which
respects political and religious pluralism and reaffirms
historical and cultural
values, especially Maya values, in the search for ways of promoting the
economic, social and cultural development
of the Maya people and of Guatemalan
society in general.

The revolving fund programme has 450 direct beneficiaries, of whom 75 per
cent are women and 25 per cent are men; the total number
of indirect
beneficiaries is 2,250.

Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Women

The Foundation carries out the “Talita Kumi” educational
programme in the rural communities of K’eqchi people in
the municipalities
of northern Alta Verapaz.

Talita Kumi was launched in the area over 25 years ago by the Don Bosco
Salesian monks. The idea of setting up an organized, officially
recognized
programme gave rise to the establishment of the Talit Kumi Centre in 1991, as
part of a Salesian project entitled “Integrated
rural development of
Q’eqchi villages of Guatemala”. The necessary infrastructure was
built with assistance from the
Kellogg Foundation.

The Centre’s objectives include: promoting the organization and
productive capacity of K’eqchi rural communities by educating
women and
training them as agents of rural change; executing educational programmes for
young indigenous women in order to train
them as community development
promoters; organizing education programmes for community groups to build their
capacity to manage their
own small-scale projects for the benefit of the
community and their families; and implementing a system of community services to
support production projects and projects to meet the population’s
needs.

The number of students taught by the Talita Kumi Centre has increased from
160 to over 600 in the past six years, while the number
of villages served has
increased to 323 and the number of families benefiting from the extension
programme has reached 15,665, with
78,325 people registered in the programme in
1998.

Talita Kumi has now become a joint executing agency with governmental
organizations and national and international non-governmental
organizations,
through projects in the areas of health, agricultural production for food
security, infrastructure, rural credit and
the distribution of medicines. The
main organizations include: the Ministry of Education, the National Literacy
Committee, the Barna
Network (Norway), the Social Investment Fund, the Ministry
of Public Health and Social Welfare (integrated health care system (SIAS),
PRESA, European Union), the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (SHARE, CARE,
Catholic Relief Services, USAID), the Archdiocesan branch
of Caritas, the
Castillo Córdova Foundation and the World Food Programme.

The Centre provides credits to peasants whose possibilities of obtaining
funds from traditional sources are limited, to enable them
to increase their
agricultural productivity.

Access to recreation

The Ministry of Culture and Sports has formulated a culture and sports
policy for 1996-2000. With regard to artistic activities,
the goals are the
democratization of culture, a culture of peace, support for art and national
artists and recovery of the national
heritage with a view to cultural tourism
and ecotourism.

The overall objective of cultural policy is to enable Guatemalan citizens
and other residents of Guatemala fully to exercise their
right to culture as
recognized in the Constitution and in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.

The culture and sports policy is designed to promote and encourage the
population’s active participation in cultural and sports
activities, fully
respecting their various expressions, and to facilitate the exercise of the
right to culture and sports, especially
in the areas affected by the internal
armed conflict.

The policy of encouraging the population to participate in culture and
sports provides equal opportunities for women and men. In
reporting on article
10 of the Convention, this report provided information on the activities carried
out by women in Guatemalan
culture and sports.

Access to recreation for private and public sector workers

In accordance with Decree No. 43-92 amending Congressional Decree
No. 1528 containing the Act setting up the Guatemalan Workers’
Recreation Institute (IRTRA), male and female workers can use the
Institute’s recreational facilities for a small fee. The
Institute is
funded by 1 per cent of the 10 per cent of payroll that all employers are
required to contribute monthly to the Guatemalan
Social Security Institute.

On 15 February 1969, the Department of Recreation and Well-being of State
Employees was set up within the Ministry of Labour and
Social Security.
Subsequently, Congressional Decree No. 81-70 provided for the creation of
vacation and recreation centres for State
employees. The Ministry of Labour and
Social Security, through the Department of Recreation and Well-being and based
on Ministerial
Agreement No. 36-74 regulating the vacation centres for State
employees, oversees the functioning of the six recreation centres.

Based on article 6 of Congressional Decree No. 81-70, public employees have
one day’s pay per year deducted from their salaries
to fund and administer
the recreation centres. Governmental Agreement No. 241-88 of 19 April 1988 also
introduced the vacation bonus
as a benefit for employees of the executive
branch.

Article 14

Status of rural women

In the latest housing census conducted by the National Statistical Institute
(INE), of Guatemala’s total population of 8,331,874
people, 65 per cent,
or 5,417,187 people, were living in rural areas and 35 per cent, or 2,914,687
people, were living in urban areas.
Of the total female population of 4,228,569,
rural women accounted for 64 per cent (2,706,283) and urban women accounted for
36 per
cent (1,522,286).

Guatemalan society is made up of a number of socio-cultural and linguistic
groups, principally Maya, ladinos, Garifuna and Xinca. According to the
INE classification of the indigenous and non-indigenous population, the former
total 3,476,684,
or 42.8 per cent, and the latter, 4,637,380, or 57.2 per
cent.

The distribution of female employment has been changing slowly but remains
concentrated in four economic areas: agriculture, manufacturing,
commerce and
services, reflecting traditional perceptions of working women. Currently, 65 per
cent of rural women are believed to
work in agriculture, but this activity is
under-recorded.

Agriculture is one of the means most frequently used by rural women as a
subsistence and development activity. However, because it
is viewed as an
inherent part of domestic work, it tends to be unpaid. Although their activity
is closely linked to the land, rural
women have little access to land, credit or
technology.

With regard to agrarian legislation and women’s access to land,
Congressional Decree No. 1551 containing the Agrarian Reform
Act is based on the
principle of gender neutrality, meaning that it does not discriminate against
women in awarding land. The National
Land Fund (FONATIERRA) was set up by Decree
No. 754-92 to purchase land from private individuals who offered voluntarily to
sell
it to the State. Farms were awarded to the governing bodies of organized
groups; once the farms were paid for, heads of family were
awarded ownership.

Governmental Agreement No. 452-97 of 25 June 1997 set up the Presidential
Office for Legal Assistance and Dispute Settlement in Land
Matters (CONTIERRA),
which provides free legal aid on request to peasants and agricultural workers
and intervenes in land disputes
to help settle them.

Based on the commitments made in the Peace Agreements, the Government of
Guatemala, as indicated under article 3 in this report,
is promoting
peasants’ access to land ownership, taking into account their economic and
social situation, particularly that
of women. The development strategies, plans
and programmes implemented by each Government Ministry recognize the equal
rights of
men and women in the home, in the workplace, in production, in social
and political life and in access to credit, land ownership
and other
resources.

It has been shown that indigenous women’s lack of access to land is
attributable to many factors, including the fact that in
Guatemalan society men
own the land and indigenous women are rarely given a share in it. With regard to
access to credit, indigenous
communities in general do not have the necessary
means to obtain credit, such as good organization and property to secure it.

According to the records and statistics of the National Institute for
Agrarian Reform (INTA), women’s access to land has been
minimal. Of the
116,209 land awards made by the Institute between 1954 and 1996, only eight per
cent (9,240) were made to women.
The types of land that women have obtained are
lots, collectively-owned farmland, parcels, microparcels and jointly-owned
family
farmland. Aspects such as this will be improved by the implementation of
the Peace Agreements and other Government action. As regards
women’s
access to economic activities, the Guatemalan Housing Fund (FOGUAVI) grants
loans to widows and single mothers to buy
land and build housing, the only
requirement being that there is a family nucleus (children or dependants). At
this point, the Fund
does not have gender-disaggregated statistics, but only
statistics on the total loans granted through the various finance companies
with
which it works.

The Guatemalan Fund for Indigenous Development (FODIGUA) set up by
Governmental Agreement No. 435-94 is designed to support and strengthen
the
sustained, self-managed human development process of indigenous people of Maya
descent and their communities and organizations,
in keeping with their world
view. It has supported educational, health, cultural, social, production and
infrastructure programmes,
benefiting a total of 12,360 women in the period
1996-1997.

Projects subsidized by the Fund include the following: improved stoves,
purchase of nixtamal mills and sewing machines, yarn for
weavers, training of
nurses, dressmaking schools, training of traditional birth attendants and
handicrafts.

The Fund has four regional coordinating offices grouped according to
linguistic characteristics:

Region I, covering the Mam, Jacalteco, Akateco, Chuj, Kanjobal, Tectiteco
and Sipacapense linguistic communities living in the departments
of
Huehuetenango, San Marcos and Quetzaltenango.

Since 1993, based on the agenda for the reactivation and modernization of
agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has been
promoting policies
and programmes of work in support of rural women through its bilateral
inter-institutional committee for rural
women (MAGA-Mujer Rural) set up by
Ministerial Agreement 650-94 as the lead agency for the overall strengthening of
the agricultural
sector, creating new opportunities for consultation at the
national and international levels with a view to complying with national
and
international agreements such as the Agreement on Identity and Rights of
Indigenous Peoples and the Beijing Platform for Action.

The bilateral committee is made up of 30 non-governmental organizations
which are carrying out programmes for rural women in Chimaltenango,
Quetzaltenango, Escuintla, Quiché, Huehuetenango and Mazatenango.

Since 1995, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, with support from FONAGRO,
has carried out production projects with non-reimbursable
resources. It has also
obtained cooperation for strengthening organizations through training and the
coordination of inter-institutional
efforts. It has cooperated closely with the
bilateral committee, through the National Agricultural Development Council
(CONADEA),
in executing the committee’s programmes.

The bilateral committee set up the Rural Women’s Foundation in order
to have better access to services and programmes with
other governmental and
international cooperation institutions. It is currently a member of the Board of
Directors of the Rural Development
Bank (BANRURAL). The Ministry of Agriculture
and Food has coordinated with the rural women’s cooperation network of the
Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in order to work
with the programme for the integration of rural women in
business production
chains, democratization and the social economy, which promotes and support
efforts to improve women’s living
conditions and their integration in
rural development in Central America.

By Agreement No. 175-96, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food set up the
Consultative Group on Gender, comprising the various institutions
and projects
in the sector, with the overall aim, in the context of the peace process, of
contributing to the development process
by promoting the participation of men
and women. The Group includes 23 rural women’s associations and in 1997
proposed continuing
the process of gender-mainstreaming in institutional
programmes so that INTA could join in the process and so that services could
be
provided within a sustainable framework in which there was equity for men and
women.

Through these organizations, funding has been obtained for production and
handicrafts projects benefiting some 20,000 indigenous
women in the
country’s interior.

The Consultative Group’s objectives include strengthening the Ministry
of Agriculture and Food in order to contribute to gender-mainstreaming
in policy
and project formulation; and expanding activities to non-governmental groups,
building on actions with a gender approach
taken by units in the sector and
optimizing resources.

Another measure taken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, in
recognition of the importance of women’s work for economic
survival and
the importance of unremunerated work, was the creation, by Ministerial Agreement
No. 186-96, of a Women’s Office
as part of the Ministry’s technical
and administrative structure. The Office promotes coordination and cooperation
among and
within the institutions of the public agriculture and food sector that
carry out programmes and/or activities aimed at rural women.
Its purpose is to
respond to the demands and needs of working women who use the Ministry’s
services, in order to contribute
to the economic and social development of
Guatemala as part of the implementation of the Peace Agreements.

The Office’s main functions include:

– Ensuring that women have access to agricultural and environmental
development in order to meet their social and economic
needs;

– Coordinating with units of the public agriculture and food sector
with a view to establishing branches of the Women’s
Office in each of
them;

– Promoting the creation of self-managed projects for women to support
Guatemala’s development;

– Ensuring that the international human rights instruments ratified by
Guatemala and aimed at eradicating violence and discrimination
against women are
complied with in the public agriculture and food sector;

– Coordinating development, training and education projects for rural
women with other national and international agencies.

The Rural Development Bank is currently implementing the following
programmes:

– Sierra de los Cuchumatanes Rural Development Programme (PROCUCHU).
The purpose of this programme is to promote peasant women’s
production
activities through a self-managed credit fund which provides loans under
contract to selected non-governmental organizations.
The programme has
US$ 300,000 in available funding and covers the following areas: Chiantla,
Todos Santos Cuchumatán, Concepción
Huista, San Juan Ixcoy, San
Pedro Soloma, Santa Eulalia, San Rafael la Independencia, San Sebastián
Coatán and San
Miguel Acatán de Huehuetenango.

– Rural Development Project for Small Farmers in the Departments of
Zacapa and Chiquimula (PROZACHI). This project supports
the activities of rural
women who market what they produce. It is being implemented in the departments
of Zacapa and Chiqumula in
region III, North-East.

– Rural Credit, a general trust fund which operates throughout the
country.

– Project for the Integrated Development of Rural Communities (DICOR).
The aim of this project is to promote productive activities
such as market
gardening, raising domestic animals, bee-keeping, growing medicinal plants,
dressmaking, breadmaking, handicrafts,
nixtamal milling, making piñatas,
rockets and wax candles, and other similar activities. The intention is to
purchase raw
materials and equipment for women’s groups once they have
been trained by the project executing unit. The project is being
implemented in
the departments of Progreso, Quiché, Huehuetenango and San Marcos.

– Trust Fund for Communities in Transition (FICOTRANS). This fund
assists foundations, associations, entities and groups of
farmers or rural
entrepreneurs made up of men and women. It operates in Santa Cruz Barrillas,
Huehuetenango.

– Land Trust Fund set up under the Peace Agreements. This fund
provides credit to peasant men and women who have little or
no land or who face
constraints in using their land. It operates throughout the country.

By means of Governmental Agreement No. 356-96 of 6 September 1996, the First
Lady’s Social Work Secretariat (SOSEP) set up
the Programme for the
Advancement of Rural Women (PROMUJER), which is supported by the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
It implements activities in the areas of health,
education, basic services and income generation. It has departmental
coordinating
offices and its objectives are the following:

– To help improve the socio-economic situation of rural women and
their families;

– To give rural women access to basic social services such as health,
education, nutrition, housing and environmental sanitation;

– To train rural women so that they have equitable access to economic
resources and modern technology and acquire skills that
enable them to generate
income for themselves and raise their standard of living;

– To train women so that they can undertake small-scale capital
formation for work and investment purposes and even promote
rural savings and
credit systems, making Guatemala a country of property owners;

– To encourage rural women to organize so that they can participate
effectively in self-managed and civic activities;

– To encourage within public sector structures the coordination of
activities benefiting rural women, promoting a national
policy for the
advancement of rural women.

The areas in which PROMUJER provides services are: credit, training and
technical support, and support for community organizing.
Its beneficiaries are
rural Guatemalan women living in poverty or extreme poverty, regardless of age,
religion, marital status or
ethnicity. The programme currently covers eight of
the country’s main departments (with a majority indigenous population).
There are plans to expand its coverage throughout the national territory.

Women returnees

The Agreement on Resettlement of the Population Groups Uprooted by the Armed
Conflict defines “uprooted population” as
including all persons
uprooted for reasons connected with the armed conflict, whether they live within
or outside Guatemala, in particular
refugees, returnees and internally displaced
persons, either dispersed or in groups, including the Communities of Population
in Resistance
(CPR).

The Agreement establishes that there can be no comprehensive development of
the uprooted population and of resettlement areas without
women’s
participation in consultations and decision-making on plans, programmes and
projects deriving from the comprehensive
resettlement strategy and promoting the
participation of all uprooted population groups. It places special emphasis on
female-headed
families and widows and orphans as being those most seriously
affected. The National Commission for Refugees, Returnees and Displaced
Persons
(CEAR) acts as facilitator and intermediary between resettled communities and
national and international governmental and
non-governmental institutions that
indicate to the Government their interest in helping implement the
Agreement.

Women returnees, considered to be a vulnerable group, have been given
priority by the governmental bodies that are implementing projects
for returnees
in resettlement areas. Currently, a project run by CEAR and the National Peace
Fund (FONAPAZ), entitled “Solidarity
with displaced persons in the
department of Quiché”, is being implemented in Quiché, and
basically covers the
following areas: community organization and technical
support for agriculture.

Immediate CEAR actions to eliminate discrimination against women include
working to make men share responsibility for family tasks
and women share
responsibility for community tasks and encouraging activities that will help
create a situation in which women are
fully valued and respected and have equal
opportunities in all areas of life, in which any kind of discrimination,
manipulation or
violence is eliminated and in which, at the same time,
women’s specific function in relation to the home and the family is
recognized and valued and the qualities that will enable them to perform that
function better are fostered.

CEAR is also working to expand the coverage of national programmes for
women’s comprehensive health care and programmes giving
priority to
working mothers, helping women balance working outside the home with caring for
their families, offering women greater
educational opportunities and promoting
specific activities to help integrate rural women in the development
process.

With regard to women’s access to credit in order to buy land, at the
time of the negotiations for the return of refugees living
in Mexico, a large
number of women appeared as representing the family group, in their capacity as
head of the family, when title
deeds to purchased farms were being issued. At
this point, not only have women become farm owners or members of cooperatives
which
acquire buildings, but they have been granted credits in their own
right.

In 1997, CEAR won the Inserso Prize, which is awarded by the Spanish
Government to institutions working for the benefit of a specific
community. The
prize money, equivalent to 45,000 quetzales, was used to set up a scholarship
fund for young returnees of both sexes
to continue their diversified secondary
education.

With regard to housing, since 1997 minimum housing has been provided to both
men and women. The document certifying the handover
of the housing is signed by
the head of family and his spouse as joint recipients. Women’s
participation in the coordination
meetings for the operational planning of
returns has been noteworthy and they have been actively involved in taking
important decisions
aimed at improving the quality of life of their own
communities. Such participation takes place through representatives of the
women’s
organizations Mamá Maquín, Madre Tierra and
Ixmucané.

Actions planned by CEAR for 1998, in relation to uprooted women include:
promoting coordination among institutions working on women’s
issues;
coordinating activities with the women’s organizations of uprooted
population groups, maintaining close communication
with the Uprooted
Women’s Coordinating Committee of the Consultative Assembly of Uprooted
Population Groups (ACPD), Madre Tierra,
Ixmucané, Mamá
Maquín, CONAVIGUA and the National Women’s Forum; and contributing
to the process of building
women’s organizations so that they have an
impact from the local level upon the forums created by the Peace Agreements.

Other planned actions include: promoting comprehensive women’s
preventive health and treatment programmes and programmes against
domestic
violence and sexual harassment; promoting self-employment by approaching
institutions that could provide soft loans to women
small-scale producers and
employment training to women; and encouraging women to organize so that they can
take part in decision-making
at the local, regional and national levels.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food has designed a project entitled
“Sustainable development for rural women and families”,
which will
be executed by the regional branches of the Ministry’s Women’s
Office and is aimed at housewives’ organizations
in the country’s
various regions.

The National Peace Fund (FONAPAZ) is carrying out community projects based
on the commitments relating to women contained in the
Peace Agreements,
including the following:

To comply with the Peace Agreements, the Government of Guatemala has carried
out various activities through FONAPAZ and the Peace
Secretariat (SEPAZ),
including:

1. Demobilization of the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG),
in which impartial assistance was given to the people
involved, of whom an
estimated 15 per cent were women.

2. Disbanding of the Mobile Military Police, in which vocational guidance
and employment training were provided and microenterprises
were set up. Of the
people disbanded, 39 per cent were women, who received training in beauty care,
cooking and sewing, activities
which they themselves chose after a process that
included guidance, building of self-esteem, literacy teaching and business
training.

3. Assistance to the uprooted population, in which 13,048 people, half of
them women, from the Communities of Population in Resistance
and the
Chajúl Land Committee, amounting to a total of 3,165 households, 478 of
them headed by women, received help.

Projects with a gender approach executed by FONAPAZ

1. Food programme

FONAPAZ is carrying out this project through its executing unit. The project
is based on the new food-for-work approach and has the
support of the World Food
Programme, involving the monetization of food through its sale prior to or upon
arrival in port. The money
thus raised is used to create a Food Compensation
Fund, and women’s committees are set up in each community to manage and
administer
the funds allocated from it by FONAPAZ for the purchase of local
foodstuffs. The core strategy of the project is to:

(a) Promote a discussion with a view to generating local initiatives;

(b) Encourage community self-management with a gender approach;

(c) Encourage community participation in project activities.

The project involves providing local foodstuffs in exchange for days worked
on community projects, thereby encouraging agricultural
production and local
food consumption. Its goal is to teach women to organize and manage themselves
so that they can administer their
own funds.

2. Programme of support for rural women’s production
activities

This programme, costing a total of 978,300 quetzales, is being executed by
PROMUJER, which implements production projects aimed at
rural women. As
indicated in the section on activities under the rural women’s programme,
it includes projects for pig fattening,
textile handicrafts, community shops and
agricultural supply shops, in which technical and administrative training is
provided.

This project forms part of the national programme on this issue to be
implemented in fulfilment of the Peace Agreements. Its aim
is to provide
compensation to the members of the civilian population most severely affected by
the armed conflict. Widows and orphans,
among others such as disabled and older
persons, have been identified as those who suffered most from the conflict and
who are living
in the most precarious conditions. Although the project, which
has a budget of US$ 1.7 million, will benefit this group in general,
it has a
cross-cutting gender and ethnicity component.

4. Community development for peace

This programme, costing US$ 500,000, seeks to motivate all citizens without
exception. It mainstreams a gender perspective throughout
and ensures that women
participate on an equal footing with men. The meaning of the concept of gender
is being disseminated widely
in the 16 communities in Huehuetenango and the
Ixcán area in which the programme is being executed.

Article 15

Legal status

The Constitution, laws and regulations of Guatemala recognize the right of
all inhabitants of the Republic individually or collectively to petition
the
authorities, and the obligation of the authorities to consider and rule on such
petitions in accordance with the law, without
discriminating on grounds of
sex.

Freedom of access to the courts and other State bodies with a view to
bringing actions and invoking rights is also recognized without
discrimination,
based on the principle of equality of men and women embodied in article 4 of the
Constitution.

Under article 8 of the Civil Code, both men and women acquire the capacity
to assume rights and obligations when they reach the age
of majority, which is
18 years. The relative capacity of minors is recognized in some specific cases,
however, such as the capacity
of minors aged 14 and over to contract their
services and dispose of their wages.

Article 28 of the Constitution establishes the right of petition as follows:
“Inhabitants of the Republic have the right individually or collectively
to petition
the authorities and the authorities have the obligation to consider
and rule on such petitions in accordance with the law.

In administrative matters, the deadline for ruling on a petition and
notifying the petitioner of the ruling may not exceed 30 days.

In fiscal matters, a taxpayer seeking to challenge an administrative
decision in a case for repayment or adjustment of any tax shall
not be required
to first pay the tax or some form of guarantee.”

Article 29. Free access to the courts and State bodies. “Everyone has
free access to the courts and to State bodies and offices
with a view to
bringing actions and invoking rights in accordance with the law.

Aliens may only have recourse to the diplomatic channel in the event of a
denial of justice.

The fact that a judgement is contrary to their interests does not mean that
it constitutes a denial of justice. In any case, the
legal remedies established
under Guatemalan law must first have been exhausted.”

Despite the foregoing, there are laws and regulations which discriminate
against women in their application, because of the context
in which they were
enacted. Governmental and non-governmental organizations working for the
advancement of Guatemalan women have
therefore submitted to the Congress of the
Republic preliminary bills designed to eliminate such discrimination, such as
the proposed
amendments to the Civil Code, the Elections and Political Parties
Act, the Urban and Rural Development Councils Act, the Act enhancing
the dignity
of women and the family, the Diplomatic Service Act, the Labour Code, The Act
organizing the Guatemalan Social Security
Institute and the Penal Code.

Article 16

Measures to eliminate discrimination against women in marriage

Currently, family rights in Guatemala are regulated by the Civil Code
contained in Decree-Law No. 106. To ensure the exercise of
the rights embodied
in the Code, there is the Act establishing the family courts, which have
exclusive jurisdiction in matters of
protection. Family law is supplemented by
provisions of the Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure. There is also the Act
regulating
the notarial processing of matters of voluntary jurisdiction, which
regulates procedures related to family law.

Right to enter into marriage

Under article 8 of Guatemala’s Civil Code, capacity is the ability to
assume rights and obligations: “Capacity to exercise
civil rights is
acquired upon reaching the age of majority, which is 18 years. Minors aged 14
and over have capacity for some acts
determined by law.”

Article 81. Capacity to enter into marriage: “Persons who have reached
the age of majority are free to enter into marriage.
However, boys aged 16 or
over and girls aged 14 or over may enter into marriage, subject to receiving
authorization as stipulated
in the following articles.”

Article 82. “Authorization must be given jointly by the father and the
mother or by the parent who has parental authority.

In the case of an adopted minor, the adoptive father or mother shall give
authorization. If there are no parents, authorization shall
be given by the
guardian.”

An amendment to article 81 of the Civil Code has been proposed which would
make the age the same for boys and girls, so that on reaching
16 years of age,
boys and girls would have the same rights. The proposal is based on studies
carried out by UNICEF, the Pan-American
Health Organization/World Health
Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare aimed at
eliminating sexist
stereotypes and patriarchal biases which limit development
opportunities between men and women.

Free choice of a spouse

Guatemalan law recognizes the freedom of action of the individual,
irrespective of sex, race, religion or social class, stating that
all persons
are entitled to do whatever the law does not prohibit. As a result, Guatemalans
are free to choose the person with whom
they wish to live permanently.

Rights and responsibilities during marriage and at its
dissolution

Since the family is the nucleus of Guatemalan society, article 47 of the
Constitution, on protection of the family, establishes that: “The State
guarantees the social, economic and legal protection of the family.
It shall
promote its organization on the legal basis of marriage, equal rights of the
spouses, responsible parenthood and the right
of persons to decide freely on the
number and spacing of their children.”

The Civil Code regulates the rights and obligations deriving from marriage.
Governmental and non-governmental organizations working
on women’s issues
have found that some of its articles discriminate against women. Accordingly,
the ONAM Women and Legal Reforms
project submitted to the Congressional
Committee on Women, Children and the Family preliminary draft amendments to the
articles of
the Civil Code that discriminate against women or violate their
human rights, and the Congressional Human Rights Committee presented
a
legislative proposal for amending those articles. The amendments concern the
following:

– The right of a married woman to add her husband’s family name
to her own and to keep it unless the marriage is dissolved
for some reason. ONAM
has submitted a bill amending article 108 of the Civil Code which, as currently
drafted, causes wives to be
dependent, undervalued and discriminated against by
treating them as their husband’s property. The amendment to article 108
reads: “Family name of a married woman. In no case shall marriage compel a
woman to lose her family name or to use that of
her husband.”

– Representation of married couples was regulated by article 109 of
the Civil Code, which read: “The husband shall represent
the married
couple but both spouses shall have equal authority and receive the same
consideration within the home; they shall choose
their place of residence by
mutual agreement and shall settle all matters relating to the upbringing and
establishment of the children
and to the family finances.”

It was proposed that this article should be amended to reflect the necessary
equity between men and women, since men and women’s
rights and obligations
must be the same with regard to both representation and the upbringing of
children.

The amended text of the article, which was adopted by Decree No. 80-98 of 19
November 1998 and is awaiting approval by the executive
branch, reads:
“Article 109. Representation of the married couple. Both spouses have the
same right to represent the married
couple and shall have equal authority and
receive the same consideration within the home. They shall choose their place of
residence
by mutual agreement and shall settle all matters relating to the
upbringing and establishment of the children and to the family finances.

In the event of disagreement between the spouses as to who should represent
the married couple, the family court judge shall determine
which spouse is to do
so.”

With regard to protection of the wife, article 110 of the Civil Code used to
read: “Protection of the wife. The husband must
protect and assist his
wife and must provide her with everything that is needed for the upkeep of the
household according to his
economic possibilities.

The wife has the right and the obligation, in particular, to care for her
minor children and to supervise the housework.”

The draft amendments to the Civil Code proposed that the title of the
article should be “Protection of the family” and
that the division
of responsibilities within the home should be changed to make the spouses share
them.

As amended by Decree No. 80-98, the article now reads: “Both spouses
have the obligation to care for their minor children.”

On the wife’s obligation with regard to the upkeep of the household,
article 111 of the Civil Code used to read: “The
wife shall also
contribute equitably to the upkeep of the household if she has her own property
or has a job, profession, occupation
or trade; however, if the husband is
incapacitated for work and has no property of his own, the wife shall cover all
expenditures
with her own income.”

Article 111 as modified by the draft amendments to the Civil Code would make
both spouses share responsibility for the upkeep of
the household and would
treat housework as a contribution to such upkeep. As of the date of drafting
this report, the article had
not been amended.

With regard to the wife’s rights to the husband’s income,
article 112 of the Civil Code reads: “The wife shall
always have a
preferential right to the husband’s salary, wage or income, in the
quantities required to support herself and
her minor children.

The husband shall have the same right in cases where the wife has the
obligation to cover all or part of the family’s expenditures.”

Article 113 of the Civil Code reads: “Wife employed outside the home.
The wife may perform a job or engage in a profession,
industry, occupation or
trade, as long as this is not prejudicial to the interests and care of the
children and to her other household
responsibilities.”

Article 114 of the Civil Code used to read: “The husband may oppose
the wife’s engaging in activities outside the home,
as long as he provides
her with whatever is needed for the upkeep of the household and there are
justified reasons for his opposition.
The judge shall rule outright as to what
is appropriate.”

This article was repealed by Congressional Decree No. 80-98.

Article 115 used to read: “Representation by the wife. The wife shall
exercise legal representation if the husband ceases to
do so for any reason and
especially in the following cases: 1. If the husband is legally barred from
doing so; 2. If the husband
abandons the home voluntarily or is legally presumed
dead; and 3. If the husband is sentenced to a term of imprisonment and for the
duration of that term.”

The preliminary draft amendments submitted by the ONAM Women and legal
Reforms projects to the Congressional Committee on Women,
Children and the
Family proposed that the foregoing article should be repealed in order to
eliminate patriarchal authority over the
wife, in keeping with the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and with ILO
Convention No.
111 concerning Discrimination in respect of Employment and
Occupation and based on article 4 of the Constitution.

The article was amended by Decree No. 86-98 as follows: “In the event
of disagreement between the spouses as to who should
represent the married
couple, the family court judge, taking into account the conduct of each member
of the couple both within and
outside the home, shall determine which spouse is
to exercise representation and for how long and what conditions the other spouse
must fulfil in order to be able to exercise it again.

In any event, the household shall be administered individually, without any
need for a judicial ruling to that effect, in the following
cases:

– If one or other spouse is legally barred from doing so;

– If one or other spouse abandons the home voluntarily or is legally
presumed dead;

– If one or other spouse is sentenced to a term of imprisonment and
for the duration of that term.”

With regard to the administration of the marital property, the Civil Code
establishes the following:

Article 116. Marriage settlements. “The economic regime governing the
marriage shall be that specified in the marriage settlements
concluded by the
spouses before or during the celebration of the marriage.”

“Article 121. Marriage settlements must include: 1. A detailed
description of the property owned by each of the spouses at
the time of entering
into marriage; 2. A statement of the debts owed by each spouse; 3. An express
declaration by the spouses as
to whether they are adopting the regime of
absolute community of property, that of separation of acquisitions or such other
procedures
and conditions as they may choose for the administration of the
marital property.”

Article 122. Absolute community of property. “Under the regime of
absolute community, all the property brought by the spouses
to the marriage or
acquired during it forms part of the marital property and shall be divided
equally between them in the event of
dissolution of the marriage.”

Article 123. Absolute separation of property. “Under the regime of
absolute separation, each spouse retains ownership and control
of the property
belonging to him/her and remains exclusive owner of the proceeds and
acquisitions resulting therefrom.

Each spouse shall also retain ownership of any wages, salaries, emoluments
or earnings obtained by providing personal services or
engaging in trade or
industry.”

Article 124. Community of acquisitions. “Under the regime of community
of acquisitions, the husband and the wife retain ownership
of such property as
they had upon entering into marriage and of such property as they acquire during
marriage either without paying
for it or by paying equal amounts, but the
following shall be divided equally between them in the event of dissolution of
the marital
property: 1. The proceeds of the property owned by each of the
spouses, after deduction of the corresponding production, repair and
maintenance
costs and taxes and municipal charges; 2. Property purchased with or exchanged
for such proceeds, even if it was purchased
in the name of only one of the
spouses; 3. Property acquired by each spouse through his/her work, job,
profession or industry.”

Article 125. Alteration of marriage settlements. “The spouses have an
inalienable right, during the marriage, to alter the
marriage settlements and
adopt another economic regime for the marital property.

The alteration of marriage settlements must be effected by means of a public
deed which shall be recorded in the corresponding register;
the alteration shall
have a prejudicial effect on third parties only from the date on which it is
recorded.”

Article 126. Subsidiary regime. “In the absence of property
settlements, the marriage shall be understood to have been entered
into under
the regime of community of acquisitions.”

Article 127. Property of each spouse. “Notwithstanding the provisions
of the preceding articles, the following shall be considered
the personal
property of each spouse: property acquired by inheritance, gift or otherwise
without payment; and accident compensation
or personal injury or sickness
insurance payments, after deduction of the premiums paid during the community
property regime.”

With regard to the administration of the family property, article 131 of the
Civil Code used to stipulate: “Administration.
The husband is the
administrator of the marital property under the regime of absolute community or
that of community of acquisitions,
although his powers may not exceed the limits
of normal administration. In order to be valid, the disposal or encumbrance of
the
community’s immovable property must have the consent of both
spouses.”

As amended by Decree No. 80-98, the article now reads: “Under the
regime of absolute community or that of community of acquisitions,
both spouses
shall administer the marital property, either jointly or separately. In order to
be valid, the disposal or encumbrance
of the community’s immovable
property must have the consent of both spouses.”

Article 132 of the Civil Code used to read: “Opposition of the wife.
The wife may oppose any act by the husband that would
prejudice the administered
interests; she may also have his administration terminated and request
separation of property if his blatant
negligence, incompetence or imprudent
administration threatens to ruin the common property or does not provide
adequate support for
the family. In both cases, the judge of first instance,
after a detailed examination of the facts, shall rule on what is
appropriate.”

Congressional Decree No. 80-98 amended article 132 to read as follows:
“Opposition. Either spouse may oppose the other spouse’s
taking
actions that prejudice, or may prejudice, the marital property.

Either spouse may also request the judge to terminate the other’s
administration and to change the marital economic regime
to that of separation
of property if the other spouse acts negligently, incompetently or imprudently
in administering the marital
property, thereby jeopardizing the property or the
provision of adequate support for the family.

In order to be valid, the disposal or encumbrance of the community’s
immovable property must have the consent of both spouses.”

The proposal to prevent the husband from having the exclusive right to
dispose of or encumber the marital property was designed to
ensure that both
parties share in the administration of that property. Decree No. 80-98 repealed
article 133 regulating the administration
of property by the wife in cases where
it is not administered by the husband.

Article 141. “Unjustified abandonment of the marital home by one of
the spouses shall terminate for that spouse, as from the
date of such
abandonment, the effects of the community property regime that are favourable to
him/her.”

In the draft preliminary amendments to the Civil Code, this article is
expanded to include the obligation to report the abandonment
to the competent
judge and to notify the other party. This means that if one party is forced to
leave the marital home for reasons
not attributable to him/her, he or she will
be able to request a family court judge to draw up a document stating the
reasons which
prompted the decision to leave, thereby ensuring that the effects
of the community property regime that are favourable to him/her
are not
terminated.

With regard to the articles on separation and dissolution of marriage, the
following regulations and amendments have been proposed:

– Add “domestic violence” to the grounds listed in article
155 for seeking a separation or divorce;

– Among the various effects specific to separation, other than
continuation of the marriage, repeal paragraph 2 of article
60 giving the wife
the right to continue using her husband’s family name;

– With regard to article 169 of the Civil Code regulating a
wife’s right to alimony, eliminate the part which reads:
“the wife
shall be entitled to alimony as long as she conducts herself properly”,
since a judicial official’s notion
of what constitutes proper or improper
conduct is bound to be highly subjective;

– Amend article 171 regulating the disposal of the marital property by
adding a reference to the interests of the children
as well as the spouses, so
that children are not deprived of the stability that comes from having the
necessary financial resources
for their development.

De facto unions

Guatemalan legislation recognizes the institution of de facto union, that
is, the stable, free and exclusive union, for a period
of time determined by
law, of a man and a woman who have lived together openly and continuously for
the same purposes and with the
same effects as if they were married.

Article 48 of the Constitution and articles 173 to 189 of the Civil Code
regulate de facto unions, which may be formalized voluntarily before the local
mayor, a
notary or a family court judge and are dissolved in the same way as a
marriage. Since there is also discrimination against women
in such unions, the
Women and Legal Reforms project has also proposed amendments to those
articles:

– Article 173. When to declare a de facto union. “The de facto
union of a man and a woman who have the capacity to enter
into marriage may be
declared by them to the local mayor or a notary so that it produces legal
effects, provided that there is a
home and they have lived together continuously
for over three years with the knowledge of their families, friends and
acquaintances,
fulfilling the purposes of procreation, support and rearing of
children and mutual assistance.”

The proposed amendment would change the period of time that must elapse
before declaring a de facto union. A discretionary period
of two years is
proposed for establishing that the man and the woman wish to live together
permanently.

Article 174. How to make the declaration. “The declaration referred to
in the preceding article shall be recorded in a document
drawn up by the mayor,
or in a public deed or notarized document if a notary is used.

Once they have been legally identified, the man and the women shall declare
under oath their first and last names, their date and
place of birth, their
domicile and place of residence, their profession or occupation, the date on
which the de facto union commenced,
the children of the union and their names
and ages, and the property acquired during the period that they have lived
together.”

The Civil Code stipulates that within the two weeks following the
declaration, the officials concerned must inform the Civil Registry
Office so
that the recording of the union produces the effects of marriage. As long as the
union remains in effect, the consent of
both parties is required for the
disposal of the common property.

Unions involving minors may be declared only with the consent of the parents
or guardian or, where appropriate, the authorization
of a judge. De facto unions
may also be legalized by application of one of the parties to a competent judge,
either by objection
or post mortem, in which case certification of the ruling
must be recorded in the Civil and Property Register.

Rights and responsibilities with regard to guardianship, curatorship,
custody and adoption of children

The Civil Code provisions in this regard are as follows:

Article 190. Types of kinship. “The law recognizes kinship by blood to
the fourth degree, kinship by affinity to the second
degree and civil kinship by
adoption, which exists only between the adopter and the adoptee. Spouses are kin
but do not form a degree.”

Article 209. Equality of rights of children. “Children born out of
wedlock have the same rights as children born within wedlock;
however, the
express consent of the other spouse is required for them to live in the marital
home.”

Article 216. Recognition by grandparents. “In the event of death or
incapacity of the father or mother, a child may be recognized
by the paternal or
maternal grandfather, respectively.

If the incapacitated parent recovers, he or she may contest the recognition
within one year from the date on which he or she learns
of it.”

An amendment has been proposed to this article allowing grandmothers or
grandfathers to recognize grandchildren and dispensing with
any order of
preference so as not to discriminate against maternal grandmothers and
grandfathers; a reference to the best interests
of the child is also included,
in keeping with article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Article 219. Rights of a woman who has cared for a child. “A woman who
has cared for a child as if he/she were her own and
who has provided for the
child’s subsistence and upbringing has a right not to have the child taken
away from her if a man
recognizes the child as his own. However, if she is
compelled by a judicial ruling to hand over the child, the father who is seeking
to take the child must first repay the amount spent on the child’s
upkeep.”

It has been proposed that this article should be amended to ensure that the
best interests of the child are protected, based on reports
by social workers or
experts in this field, so that children are not separated from the person who
has protected them, in keeping
with the Convention on the Rights of the
Child.

Articles 228 to 251 of the Civil Code regulate the institution of adoption.
Article 228 defines the concept: “Adoption is the
legal act of social
welfare whereby the adopter takes as his/her own child the minor child of
another person.

Notwithstanding the provisions of the foregoing paragraph, the adoption of
an adult may be legalized with his/her express consent
if a de facto adoption
existed while he/she was a child.”

Women and men, either separately or jointly, may adopt a child; the rights
and obligations arising from adoption do not extend to
the relatives of the
adopter or the adoptee, but the adoptive children have the same rights as the
natural children and the same
obligations to the parents. The adopter has
parental authority over the adoptee and the latter is entitled to use the
former’s
family name.

With regard to parental authority, the Civil Code stipulates the
following:

Article 252. Within or outside marriage. “Within a marriage or de
facto union, the father and the mother have joint parental
authority over the
minor children; in all other circumstances, the custodial parent has parental
authority.”

Article 253 of the Civil Code used to read: “Obligations of both
parents. The father and the mother have the obligation to
care for and sustain
their children, whether born in or out of wedlock, and to raise and correct
them, using prudent means of discipline,
and shall be held criminally
responsible if they abandon them morally or materially and cease to fulfil the
duties inherent in their
parental authority.”

The preliminary draft amendments to the Civil Code submitted by the ONAM
Women and Legal Reforms project proposed expanding this
article to include the
meaning of responsible parenthood in all its aspects, not just that of providing
sustenance but also that
of inculcating self-discipline in order to foster
children’s decision-making capacities, critical faculties and sense of
responsibility,
raising them to participate equitably in housework and family
decision-making and also to take part in the community, political,
cultural,
economic and social life of the country.

The article was amended by Decree No. 80-98 to read: “When, during a
marriage or de facto union, the father and the mother
exercise joint parental
authority, they shall also represent the minor children or incapacitated persons
and administer their property,
either jointly or separately, except in the cases
listed in article 115 or in the event of separation or divorce, in which case
the
parent who has guardianship of the minors or incapacitated persons shall
represent them and administer their property.”

Article 254. Representation of minors or incapacitated persons.
“Parental authority includes the right to legally represent
minors or
incapacitated persons in all civil acts, to administer their property and to use
their services in a manner appropriate
to their age and status”.

Article 255. “When the mother and the father exercise parental
authority jointly during a marriage or de facto union, the father
shall
represent the minor children and incapacitated persons and administer their
property.”

It has been proposed that this article should be amended to give both
parents, jointly or without distinction, the authority to represent
the minor
children and incapacitated persons and to administer their property.

Article 256. Conflict between the father and the mother. “In all cases
where there is a conflict of rights and interests between
the father and the
mother in exercising parental authority, the corresponding judicial authority
must decide what is best for the
well-being of the child.”

Article 257. Parents who are minors. “If the parents are minors, the
person who has parental authority or guardianship over
the father shall
administer the property of the children.”

The proposed amendments to the Civil Code include adding to article 257 the
requirement that either the person who has parental authority
or guardianship or
the paternal or maternal grandparents, without preference based on family branch
or sex, must consult minors concerning
the administration of their property. In
the event of a dispute, the issue must be decided by a judge.

The Civil Code regulates the institution of guardianship as follows:

Article 293. Cases where guardianship is required. “A minor who is not
subject to parental authority shall be subject to guardianship
for the care of
his/her person and property. A person who has been declared legally incompetent
shall also be subject to guardianship
if he/she has no parents, even if he/she
is not a minor.”

Article 299. Legitimate guardianship. “Legitimate guardianship of
minors may be exercised by the following, in order of priority:
1. The paternal
grandfather; 2. The maternal grandfather; 3. The paternal grandmother; 4.
The maternal grandmother; and 5. Brothers
or sisters, without distinction on
grounds of sex, giving preference to those descended from both family lines and,
among these,
to whomever is oldest and best able to do so.

The maternal line shall be preferred to the paternal line for the
guardianship of children born out of wedlock. However, if there
are justified
reasons for changing the order of preference, a judge may appoint as guardian
the relative who is best known to the
child, most suitable, best prepared and in
the best financial position, as this constitutes a guarantee of satisfactory
guardianship.”

The amendment proposed to this article would eliminate any discrimination
among the paternal or maternal grandparents on grounds
of sex in awarding
legitimate guardianship.

The various grounds for exercising guardianship set forth in article 317
include those put forward by women; this means that women
who have every right
to exercise guardianship are able to do so and that there is no discrimination
against women in this regard.

Betrothal

Under the Guatemalan Civil Code, betrothal does not create an obligation to
enter into marriage; however, it does create the entitlement
to demand the
return of gifts made as a pledge of a marriage that did not take place.